Kilrush RNLI Warning Inclement Weather Could Create Lethal Conditions By Clare's Waterways

0:00Bank of the weekend tend to look generally just maybe bring more people outdoors and we know the from national statistics that around two thirds of accidental drownings actually happen. They begin with land-based activities in terms of walking, fishing, taking photos near the water. So people don't intend to get in the water? Yeah, yeah, exactly. And also as was here in countercare, we're particularly lucky to have our incredible coastline that we have along the Atlantic coast, run by loophead and into the chandestry too, you know, so it's a fantastic community, but we just want people to respect the water at the end of the day, you know, so and look, as I said before, many of these incidents actually begin on land with people walking on cliffs, fishing on rocks or even getting too close to the water's edge, you know, so and even, you know, even after the winter, for example, cliff paths and rocky shorelines can be slippery

1:02as well, you know, so it's just we don't want people to underestimate that and similarly as well in the context of people underestimating maybe how cold the water still is in March, you know, even though the weather might feel mild, the water temperature is still very low and cold water shock can affect even strong swimmers. So I think, you know, in summary from the R&L and the other agencies, perspective is quite simple, really, for people to check the weather, pike conditions before heading out, avoid alcohol near the water and if you're on the water, are fishing near rocks, we're a life jacket because look, you can make all the different things really and I think look like R&L stations around the country, you know, Kilrush R&L, we're we respond to a range of callouts on the Shannon estuary from boats getting in difficulty, people have gotten trouble in the water, but I think in reality, a lot of these incidents could be avoided with a bit of preparation, so that's really the core of the joint safety

2:08message highlighting around the Bangkok, the Bangkok Day Week and what's in Patrick's Day Week. And when you say preparation, are you talking about the likes of checking the weather conditions, knowing what you're going into or would it be more the likes of personal flotation devices? Yeah, I think it's really, I think it's really across the board because, you know, you know, we can we can check the weather, we can check the tides and now on our phone, there are quite simple sort of checks that we can we can do beforehand, and I think coming up to St Patrick's Day as well, the piece around avoiding alcohol near the water is a lot more prevalent also, but I think because the the weather next couple of days isn't isn't fantastic, we might not expect people to be actually out in the water, but, you know, there, you know, people do take a bit of respite essentially with cliff walks and they are very slippy at this time of the year, so just be conscious of that. If people are at the counties,

3:08waterways over the weekend and they themselves are in difficulty or if they encounter somebody who's in difficulty, Charlie, how can they alert the relevant authorities to that? Yeah, of course, if anybody sees somebody in trouble in the coast or near the water, call 999 or 112 and ask for the coast guard and look, the Kilrushan lie in many of the other coast guard units are made up of volunteers in the community, look when the pager goes off, cruise leave work, family or whatever they're doing to respond to somebody in difficulty, you know, it's something the community here is very proud of and look, we want the best for we want the best for everybody and we have no problem in launching to a fossil arm with good intent, if you do think somebody's in trouble in the water, call it in, there's no issue in going out checking we prefer to bring people back home to their families this weekend.