Two young boys are lucky to be alive this week after an accident in the Cork town of Passage West.
The brothers, aged 6 and 8, almost drowned in an incident at Mariner’s Quay in the town on Saturday evening.
They were rescued by a man in a nearby apartment who saw them get into difficulty.
Martin Cullinane from Dublin Pike was in his girlfriend’s apartment next to the quayside at around 6.30pm and noticed the two boys were in trouble.
He quickly made his way down to the water and got in.
“I just didn’t stop to think. I ran down the stairs and dived in,” Martin told The Neil Prendeville Show on Cork’s Red FM.
Image via MyHome.ieOne of the boys appeared especially distressed so Martin went to his aid first, puling him to the quayside and handing him over to a passerby there.
“I swam out to the other boy who was tiny and was going under the water, said Martin.
“I grabbed him. I knew he was in a bad way because there was foam coming out of his mouth.”
Despite the tide pulling them out from the quay, Martin managed to get the boy and himself out of the water with the help of the passerby.
The boy wasn’t breathing and so Martin quickly cleared his airwaves.
“I then put him lying face down and he gasped and started to vomit up water. I never saw so much water come out of such a small child.”
CUHThe emergency services arrived quickly and took over.
The two boys were kept in Cork University Hospital (CUH) overnight as a precautionary measure but weren’t seriously injured.
Martin said he was in a state of shock afterwards and went to have a shower and warm up.
“I sat down after the shower and had a bottle of beer. It’s only today that the reality is hitting home.”
