Tributes paid to swimmer who died from heart attack

TRIBUTES WERE paid yesterday to Irish swimmer Paraic Casey who suffered a heart attack and died while swimming the English Channel early on Sunday.

Mr Casey (45), from Passage West in Cork Harbour, took ill 1km from Cap Gris Nez lighthouse near Calais at about 1.30am on Sunday after spending more than 15 hours in the water swimming from Dover to France.

Mr Casey’s wife, Riana Parsons, was on the escort boat Pace Arrow along with other Cork support team members Lisa Cummins and Liam Maher. They immediately raised the alarm when they noticed him stopping and he was brought on board the boat.

Along with pilot Paul Foreman, they tried to resuscitate him before a French coast guard helicopter dropped a medical team on board. He was brought to hospital in Calais where he was pronounced dead.

A family spokeswoman said yesterday the hospital had officially declared his death was due to a heart attack and a death certificate had been issued.

Lord Mayor of Cork Cllr John Buttimer paid tribute to Mr Casey who was swimming to raise money for both the Society of St Vincent de Paul and Marymount Hospice.

A member of the Sandycove Swimmers near Kinsale, Mr Casey declared his intention two years ago to try to swim the channel, and yesterday fellow club member and friend Ned Denison spoke of the sense of loss in the club.

“We were just celebrating the success of Steve Redmond in doing the Ocean’s Seven challenge and another of our swimmers, Craig Morrison, in completing the English Channel swim, when the news of Paraic’s death broke.

“It was such a change in emotion – from sheer elation to this terrible sense of desolation and loss. He had been with the club for four years and training hard for this for two years with up to 60 training partners, so there’s a real sense of loss and sadness in the club.”

Mr Casey, whose family once owned the Rob Roy pub on Princes Street in Cork, worked at Fota Wildlife Park in east Cork. He was also an accomplished viola player and yesterday Lyric FM presenter Evelyn Grant paid tribute.

“Paraic was a lovely guy and a really fine musician,” she said. “He played viola with the Cork Youth Orchestra and later with the National Youth Orchestra and he later went on to play with the Cork Symphony Orchestra but he gave that up in recent months to focus on swimming.”

Mr Casey’s brothers and Ms Parsons’s parents have travelled to Calais to be with her. It is understood that it will be Thursday at the earliest before his remains are released by the French authorities.