Launch of ‘drowning watch’ scheme coincides with start of college year

Volunteers from the new Galway Waterways Patrol are aiming to hold their first patrol on the weekend that students return to the city.

GWP was officially launched last week at the Radisson Blu Hotel, where a number of enthusiastic volunteers listened to an outline of proposals and information on the training that will be delivered before the first patrol.

“We are very, very unique in Galway. We have nearly 200 miles of waterways in Galway City. That’s a huge amount of water,” said GWP founder Arthur Carr to those who attended the launch.

“They have one river flowing through or they have the docks in any of the other cities where these waterway patrols are being carried out.

“And, for instance, in one river in Limerick, in three years, they have saved or prevented 300 accidents. That is just one. Cork is bigger than that because they’ve been at it a little bit longer. Wexford is huge. They haven’t been at it that long.

“We have huge amounts of waterways to patrol and we need your help,” he said.

Galway Mayor Frank Fahy – who is also a taxi driver – said he regularly comes across people in distress.

“Galway Waterways Patrol is something that should have been done years ago, and in my other life as a taxi driver, I regularly come across people who are in distress, or attempting to go in the river or in the canals.

“In a lot of cases, your first responder when you see people going into the water would be the Gardaí or the Fire Brigade, and I have to say in my 25 years of experience as a taxi driver I’ve seen quite a few people going in the river.”

In many cases, he said, there are young people who don’t get into the nightclubs with their friends and end up wandering around the city on their own. According to the mayor, some of these young people accidentally end up in the water.

“It isn’t deliberate. It’s not suicide. They’re either out of it on drink or drugs or a mixture of both. We have a lot of waterways in the city that are very open, and it’s very easy to get lost and we need to do something.”

GWP are looking at having patrols at “prime risk times”, which are between 11pm and 4am – times when many young people will be out in the city.

“When you’ve a group of five or six young people and one is turned away from the nightclub, he’s on his own. It’s not acceptable in my book that nightclubs should have that policy. And if they do turn somebody away, they should have a very valid reason for why they do it,” said Cllr Fahy.

GWP are planning to provide free training to all volunteers before they go on patrol and this training will be provided by the Red Cross and Civil Defence. The role of the volunteers will be to observe and report any incidents to the emergency services, which will be on the scene, typically, within two minutes.

Volunteers will be in orange, high-vis jackets while on patrol, so that the emergency services can spot them easily. The jackets are orange so that they don’t clash with the guards or the fire services. Emergency services will recognise the colour immediately and know exactly where the emergency is.

So far, similar patrols have saved many lives, and prevented accidents all over the country and with the high number of drownings in Galway over the years, GWP is exactly what the city needs.

“Last year the lifeguards that we trained and assessed around the country plucked 831 people from actually drowning. They plucked them out of the water, about to drown,” said Deputy CEO of Irish Water Safety, Roger Sweeney, at the launch.

“400 lost children were found, lost and wandering by themselves, alone beside water, and reunited by lifeguards with their parents.

“But the 831 that nearly drowned could have been a bigger problem. One of the issues can be double drownings and that’s where somebody actually goes in to try and rescue somebody else.”

Last year, there were 114 drownings in Ireland, 12 of which were in Galway. That’s one more drowning incident than the 11 that took place in Galway the previous year. On average, according to Mr Sweeney, there are 135 drownings in Ireland every year.

“So it’s a particular problem. We had twice as many young children aged under 14 drown last year: six. Usually three drown every year. We had the same number of teenagers drowning. Six of them drowned last year – half of them suicides and half of them accidental.

“Alcohol is a big problem and if you look at the statistics overall, in one third of all drownings in Ireland, the casualty has consumed alcohol,” said Mr Sweeney.

For more information, or to become a volunteer, email galwaywaterwayspatrol @gmail.com