Sunday, July 24, 2016

A Water Rescue by Two Irish Scouts

Two Irish Scouts on vacation in Turkey reacted quickly to save a local boy who was drowning.

An article about the Scouts appeared in the online Irish Independent.IE website, written by journalist Conor Feehan: Click here for a link. Feehan wrote, "Mollie Gibbons Powell and Sean Thompson, both age 16, are being hailed as heroes after their instinct kicked-in when they saw the 14-year-old boy jump from a gantry into a water hole and get knocked unconscious when his younger cousin jumped in immediately after him. The incident happened on Tuesday as Mollie and Sean’s families were on holiday in Mahmutlar in Turkey."

The two Scouts, a boy and a girl, did not know each other before, but their families coincidentally booked the same vacation spot in Turkey. Sean is a Sea Scout from Wexford, and Mollie from North County Dublin.

Sean immediately jumped into the water and pulled the boy to a ladder at the side of the river where Mollie was waiting to give him a hand. Sean prepped the boy for CPR and then turned him over to a German nurse who worked on him for 20 minutes until an ambulance arrived. The article quoted Sean as saying, "I always thought I was being trained in water safety for the sake of it, but now I know how important that training can be."

The article concluded with, "The families are in touch with Turkish police and hope to find out about the boy’s condition in the coming days."

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