Last night on Tuesday 15 March at approximately 10.50pm, three teenagers who were helping out on a fishing boat in Ardglass were involved in providing emergency first aid to a man they found lying unconscious at the end of the harbour pier.
The man understood to have some mental health issues was lying on his back with his arms open and his legs hanging over the harbour edge at the end of the pier in the darkness.
Joel Wills (15) who spotted the man had been helping out on his father’s scallop trawler when he then came up the ladder on to the quay. “I saw a man lying on his back in the darkness. He was unconscious. When we approached him we saw he had a cut on his head… but he was clearly unconscious. We tried speaking to him but he did not respond.
“We have all done first aid training and immediately it kicked in. We carefully checked his airways, then we put him in the unconscious position and wrapped him with our jackets to keep his body heat in. We phoned 999 and an ambulance was dispatched. But the operator seemed to have difficulty in locating the exact position of the harbour on the Google map.
“The paramedic doctor arrived first in the small ambulance and he immediately checked his pulse and attached pads to him. The police then arrived, and later on the big ambulance arrived, and he was rushed away to the hospital in Belfast.”
Matthew Kennedy (18) a young deckhand who has also completed his Basic First Aid At Sea Certificate with Joel explained: “We were quite calm in dealing with the situation. It really pays to have done a first aid course as we did all the right things. This may well have saved this man’s life.
“He could have died from choking as he was on his back, or suffered hypothermia as it was freezing cold. And he could have slipped in to the water and drowned if he rolled over at any stage as his legs were already over the edge. We are just delighted that he is now safe and in good hands, and we hope he makes a speedy recovery.”
Jack Sharvin (16), a friend of Joel and Matthew, was also helping out that evening on a fishing boat, said: “I’m a Sports Studies student at SERC and I was just helping my friends out on the boat. I’ve also studied first aid and it certainly came in very useful on this occasion.
“We acted quickly and did all the right things in first aid. The man was unconscious through the whole time, and we understand that he may have taken medication over the prescribed doze. The police who had been searching for the man said that we had done well to take care of him with first aid and keeping him safe until the ambulance arrived.
“It’s certainly a good feeling to know that we were there for him at the right time. We just can’t imagine what might have happened if Joel had not spotted him. It was a potentially fatal incident avoided.”
