THE BODY of a 74-year-old man was recovered from a river on Saturday afternoon. He had been enjoying a family outing at one of Wicklow’s famous tourist attractions when he fell into the the Avoca river.
His daughter Eileen Buck from Ballinatone, Ballinclash – just a few miles from the scene – jumped into the fast-flowing river at The Meetings of the Waters, Avoca, in a desperate attempt to pull her father from the river.
She managed to grab hold of him and held on as they were dragged 100m downriver, but the strong current pulled him from her grasp.
Ms Buck was able to make her way to the river bank and was helped up the embankment by a number of locals. Her father has been named as Dr Julian Hart who lived in Dublin.
Ms Buck brought her father to the The Meetings of the Waters, made famous by Thomas Moore in his song of that name, with her three children, a six-year-old boy and two girls aged five and two. They were standing in Thomas Moore Park when Dr Hart fell into the river shortly before 1pm. It is thought he may have suffered a heart attack. In the strong current, which had been whipped up by the recent rains, Dr Hart was swept downriver toward Woodenbridge and Arklow.
A search and rescue helicopter was scrambled to help with the search, along with Coast Guard personnel, Civil Defence, Arklow sea scouts using kayaks, and gardaí.
Gardaí and Coast Guard crew manned search points downstream of The Meetings at Whitebridge and Woodenbridge.
Just after 2pm Dr Hart’s body was spotted in the river by the helicopter crew just outside Woodenbridge Golf Club. A helicopter rescue swimmer removed the body from the water.
Paramedics attended to Dr Hart before he was taken to Tallaght hospital where a postmortem will be held.
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A pensioner was forced to cling to rocks after his boat sank off the coast of Donegal, writes Stephen Maguire. The 65-year-old was fishing alone between Glenagad and Malin Head on Saturday afternoon when his boat began to take on water.
The man, who was wearing a life jacket and had a radio, managed to make an emergency call from the rocks. Local rescue services rushed to the scene but the man was first reached by a local boat who took him to land from the rocks. He was taken by helicopter to Letterkenny General Hospital, where he was treated for hypothermia.
A spokesperson for Malin Head Coastguard said the man may not have survived his ordeal had he not been wearing his life jacket and carrying a radio.