The family saved from a waterfilled cave at Horse Island, off the Mayo coast, was detained in hospital last night after a dramatic rescue operation that saw two men die. Despite desperate efforts to save them, a German national and an experienced local diver lost their lives during the 17-hour ordeal in atrocious weather conditions.
The victims were named as Mr Michael Heffernan (38), training officer with the Grainne Uaile diving and rescue club in Ballina, and Mr Will Ernest Von Below (53), a German man who lived at Belderrig near Ballycastle.
The tragedy began after Mr Von Below took Mr Tony Murphy, his wife, Carmel, and their daughter, Emer (13), out in his new currach for a pleasure trip on Saturday. Conditions were good at the time but the party is believed to have got into difficulties when the boat neared a cave at the bottom of the cliffs at Horse Island. It is understood that the Murphys survived by huddling together on a ledge above the waterline inside the cave. The alarm was raised and the rescue services moved into action when it was discovered that Mr Von Below and the Murphy family had failed to return home. A five-man Garda Sub-Aqua Unit was flown to the scene by helicopter from Dublin Airport to take part in the operation. The Irish Marine Rescue Service, the Ballyglass lifeboat and local fishermen assisted them.
Three members of the Garda Sub-Aqua Unit, Sean O'Connell, Ciaran Doyle and Dave Mulhall, as well as two members of the IMRS entered the cave in an inflatable boat.
Mr Heffernan, a very experienced diver and a founder-member of the Grainne Uaile club, was assisting in the rescue when he drowned. Gardai said that Mr Von Below died in the cave.
The Murphy family trapped in the cave were eventually rescued by the Garda Sub-Aqua Unit which succeeded in getting into the cave with ropes.
A local man, Mr Liam McHale, said later: "One of the divers in the Garda Sub-Aqua Unit went out with a rope tied around him. But for that man, the whole party would still be in there today. It took a lot of courage to do that."
Garda an Doyle, who swam out to get the line set up with the trawler, said conditions were very rough.
"In fact they were atrocious and it was pitch dark in there. It was very helpful that the family were wearing lifejackets. They were very intelligent and had got into a crevice at the back of the cave about a metre above the water line and away from the extreme danger. The child was not panicking and the parents had done a good job in consoling her. We reassured them all and brought them out," he added.
Two other members of the Garda unit, Joe Finnegan and Kieran Flynn, who went to help in another inflatable, managed to recover the two bodies. Using the fenders off the boat they managed to get them onto the inflatable and the trawler pulled them out. A senior member of the search party said news of the deaths was a "heartbreaking end to an operation that had seemed to be going so well".