This article is from page 15 of the 2013-08-06 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 15 JPG
CLARE’S Water Safety Officer has warned people to remain vigilant on the county’s beaches following the rescue of a family of four from a West Clare beach last weekend.
The entire family were rescued by lifeguards, including a father, mother and four children who got caught in a rip current.
Describing the incident as serious Liam Griffin said, “If the lifeguards had not got involved I shudder to think what the consequences might have been for the entire family.”
“We still have a long way to go until the end of the summer. We still have the full month of August. If we get another fine spell we just don’t want three further drowning in county Clare.
“The three we had in July are three too many as far as I am concerned,” he said.
“If we do get a return of the fine weather I hope that we won’t have further fatalities and people will swim in the guarded locations and not to be swimming in quarries, reservoirs, rivers and un-recommended areas, places where they were swimming during the last warm spell.”
Mr Griffin said that despite the downturn in temperatures the county’s beaches are still very busy.
He advised beach goers to go to guarded beaches and swim between the flags.
“If you do that you are going to be grand.
“You won’t have a problem but there are people who don’t do that. They swim away from where the swim zone is and when they get into difficulty we have to try to take immediate action,” he said.