Achill Island RNLI evacuated a male patient from Inishbofin late on Monday night and into Tuesday morning, (Tuesday, October 5 ).
The patient was brought to Cleggan Pier in Galway for further transport to University College Hospital, Galway. The volunteer lifeboat crew of six with Dave Curtis as Coxswain, left Achill Island at 9.50pm on Monday night to travel a distance of 20 nautical miles to reach their casualty on Inishbofin. The journey took the all-weather lifeboat, Sam and Ada Moody, past Clare Island and Inishturk, then south to Inishbofin in moderate sea conditions with waves of up to two metres in places.
It was a cold, dark night with westerly winds and showers. A light snow flurry greeted the crew when they arrived at Inishbofin, a journey which took the Trent class lifeboat just under an hour to complete on this particular leg.
The patient was taken onboard the lifeboat which then travelled to Cleggan where the pier was lit up by members of the Cleggan Coast Guard unit who assisted with transferring the patient to the awaiting HSE ambulance. The patient was then transported to University College Hospital in Galway for further treatment and the Sam and Ada Moody returned to Achill Island at 1.26am on Tuesday morning.
Speaking after the call out, Ciaran Needham, Achill Island RNLI Lifeboat Operations Manager said: "As always, it is great to see inter-agency cooperation working so well in the early hours of the morning. Our volunteers train for all types of sea and weather conditions and are ready to respond whenever their pagers go off, day or night. We were delighted to be able to assist this patient and we wish him a speedy recovery."
