STAFF at Kinnego Marina carried out a daring rescue, despite being threatened with knives in the process.
It was another beautiful Sunday (June 8) morning for Peter McVeigh and John Kingham as they patrolled around Lough Neagh at Kinnego Marina.
Then, just before noon they came across a group of young men, clearly intoxicated with either drink or drug
s.
“There were three boys, no older then about 19 out on the Lough, reported to have knives or hammers,” John said.
“The police arrived and we went out on the RIB (Rigid Inflatable Boat) to bring them back to the shore.
“The boys were jumping about on the boat, it was not from the area and looked to be in bad need of repair, certainly not something anyone should have had on the Lough.
“When they saw us approaching they started waving ten foot timber poles at us to keep us away.”
Peter was the coxswain of the RIB, and was in charge of the rescue, he said: “We managed to get in close to them and get the poles off them, and that’s when they pulled the knives on us.
“Our main focus was to get everyone back to shore as safely as possible, including ourselves and the police officers, so we tried to calm them down.
“Two of them where persuaded to back down and let us tow the boat back to shore but one of them was determined to evade capture.
“He jumped into the water and tried to get away.”
One of the police officers dived in to try and pull him into the boat, but he started lashing out at the officer and would not let him near.
Peter continued: “Things were getting dangerous, I told the officer to leave the boy alone, there was a clear danger to both of them drowning.
“Then the boy started to struggle on his own and he went under.
“We had to get the boat as close to him as we could, by the time we got to him he went under another time and just about managed to resurface.
“There was a real danger to this guy’s life, he had been under twice for about 10 or 15 seconds, had he went under another time there’s no doubt he would have drowned.”
Despite the real threat to the teenager’s life, when the crew managed to haul him into the boat he still lashed out.
John dislocated his knee cap as the boy struggled on the floor of the boat, he said: “My training just kicked in, I was running on auto-pilot.
The full article contains 442 words and appears in Lurgan Mail newspaper.
