RNLI training helps save heart-attack victim

THREE days after he completed a two-week Kilrush RNLI Casualty Care course, Cooraclare man, Martin O’Gorman, used his life-saving skills to help a man struck down by a heart attack in Kilkee.
The man is now recovering at the Mid-Western Regional Hospital. Limerick. He suffered the heart attack near the Waterfront in Kilkee last Sunday afternoon.
At the time, Mr O’Gorman was in the Diamond Rocks Café in the West End. He was waiting for his partner, Andrea, to collect him. She had spotted the man on the ground and quickly collected Martin, bringing him to where the man was being tended to by his wife and another woman. 
“The woman was trying CPR but she was really exhausted by the time I got to her. I identified myself as a first aider and asked her could I help. She said ‘thank God’ and she basically fell over. The poor woman was very upset and his wife was very upset too. She was holding his head,” Mr O’Gorman told The Clare Champion.
“I started going through the training that I had. I had to start compressions because I could see he needed them. He wasn’t breathing. I think I was there for about five or six minutes on my own. Then a local nurse, Margaret Burke, arrived on the scene. She grabbed his hand and started taking his pulse rate. She started giving me reports and could feel me giving the compressions, which was helping the pulse,” Martin added.
At that stage, Kilkee Marine Rescue arrived to help. “Kieran de Loughrey came up and asked did we need a defibrillator. He came to my side and took over compressions. Another man put the mask on to start giving air and I went to the bag so that we could alternate between the air supply. The second shock (from the defibrillator) brought him back and stabilised him. A doctor arrived at this stage and we were able to stabilise him for the length of time that it took the ambulance to come,” Martin recalled.
The patient was on the ground for some time before the ambulance arrived in Kilkee.
“I’d say at least an hour. I know that I started CPR at 2.20pm. I got a text saying that the ambulance was seen in Kilrush at 3.05pm. I know that it was way, way after that text that the ambulance arrived,” Martin noted.
Without the RNLI training, he is certain that he wouldn’t have been able to intervene effectively.
“I wasn’t in the least bit flustered by it because of the type of training I’ve had and the intensity of it. I really just went into complete life-saving mode. I was just able to lock out any feelings that you might have at that stage. The feelings are something that you deal with afterwards,” he said.
Having also completed a training course in Cooraclare on how to use a defibrillator, Martin is adamant that his RNLI training was crucial.
“I’m proud that I could do it for them. They [RNLI] invested a lot of money in training me. We’re on our own out here and there’s proof of it that we have to look after each other in emergencies until someone can get to you. I hope that other people can think about doing the course,” he said.
The patient is still in hospital in Limerick having been transferred from Ennis on Monday.
“He’s still there and apparently he’s was talking and joking on Monday, which was a great relief for me. That’s when I took peace from it,” Martin concluded.
At the time of going to press, the HSE had not replied to a query about the ambulance’s attendance at the incident.