BY AMY ROSE HARTE
THE heartbroken mother of Bryan McDaid, the teenager who tragically drowned last week, has made an emotional plea to members of the public to lend their support to the search and rescue units who helped recover her son's body.
Speaking to the Donegal News yesterday (Thursday) Geraldine McDaid of St Johnston said she wants to give something back to the "saints" who recovered the thirteen year-old after he was swept out into the River Foyle on Monday last. The young man was playing with friends when he lost his footing on a sand bed and was carried out into water during a change of tide.
A major air and sea operation was launched and incorporated the Foyle search and rescue teams, the Greencastle coastguard, the Sligo-based rescue helicopter, Donegal Civil Defence teams and the PSNI helicopter. The search was co-ordinated by the Malin Head Coastguard.
A devastated Geraldine called on members of the public to attend a fundraising dance in Drumoghill next month to help raise proceeds for the search and rescue units that recovered her tragic son's body.
"This is the only way I can give something back to the men who gave something back to me. Only for them I wouldn't have my Bryan back with me," Geraldine said.
"I can't appreciate enough what they did for me, it's heartfelt and I can't even put it into words. These people are saints and if I could thank each and everyone of them individually I would."
"I would have walked past the search and rescue coin tins in shops and not thought a thing about them. You think you're never going to need them and it's a shame on our part that we think like that. All I'm asking is for people to help, donate whatever they can and I would be eternally grateful for that."
The fundraising event is taking place in Biddy Friels of Drumoghill on June 2 and will commence at 10.30.
"It's a memorial for our wee Bryan and people can either pay at the door or give a donation. These men are saints themselves and I see them through different eyes now. It's the only way I can thank them, for what they gave me was priceless," said Geraldine.
Bryan's death was shortly followed by another tragedy in which a 41 year-old Manchester woman died in a diving accident off the Arranmore coast on Saturday. Her death marked the ninth fatality in Donegal waters within the last 12 months.
A spokesperson for the RNLI said that nine fatalities wasn't an unusually high figure but did state that Arranmore lifeboat station was the busiest in Ireland last year. Since April 2007, the Arranmore lifeboat has launched 21 times, while the Lough Swilly lifeboat has launched nine times and Bundoran lifeboat has launched four times.
"Arranmore is a traditionally very busy station, there's a lot of action up there and it's particularly busy in summer when numbers using the water for leisure activities goes up. There's also a lot of medivacs up there because it is an island region. It was certainly the busiest lifeboat station in Ireland last year, and considering that it got more call-outs than Howth or Dun Laoghaire, it tells you just how busy they are," she said.
For more see the Donegal News online pdf editions
