Man rescued 3 days in row

The Coastguard tasked one lifeboat with another on stand-by to rescue the man last Tuesday (May 22).

The man, who is from the Lurgan area, was discovered in the Battery area of the Lough near Ardboe, following a two and a half hour search.

The man who had been in a pleasure cruiser had apparently become disorientated and ‘got lost’.

The Coastguard was alerted shortly after 10pm and the man was successfully rescued at 12.45am.

On Wednesday night the man was rescued for a second time at the shallow flats at Toland’s near Gawley’s Gate.

This time he had run aground. The Coastguard were alerted at around 9.30pm and the rescue was completed in an hour and a half. The Coastguard tasked two lifeboats to the incident.

The next day (last Thursday), the man was rescued for a third time when his boat had genuinely broken down.

The Coastguard were this time alerted at 11pm on Thursday night.

Last Saturday at around 5pm the Kinnego Marina staff rescued people from a motor cruiser which had run aground near Oxford Island on the south shore of Lough Neagh.

And the local Coastguard tasked Sligo Coastguard helicopter to Malin Head where two rescued divers were transported to the decompression chamber at Craigavon Area Hospital.

The chamber is currently the only hyperbaric chamber in operation throughout the whole of Ireland.

The incident happened the previous Saturday, May 19 at around 7pm. One diver was described as ‘walking wounded’ while the other was ‘very sick’.

And six days prior, the Coastguard in the north again tasked the helicopter from Sligo the Galway where two more divers were rescued and brought to the decompression chamber at Craigavon Area Hospital.

There had been concerns there were plans to close the facility.

However a Trust spokesperson confirmed the Trust has ‘no plans to alter or reduce the operation of the Regional Recompression Unit at Craigavon Area Hospital’.

He added: “The Regional Recompression Unit at Craigavon Area Hospital is used to treat decompression illness and is the only one of its kind in Northern Ireland.

“A number of people have recently received specialist treatment in the Regional Recompression Unit.

“However, the Trust does not provide retrospective condition reports or details regarding the specifics of the care and treatment received by any individuals.”