Co Donegal pier accident: victim told rescuer to ‘save the baby’

A man who rescued a four-month-old baby from a car that was sinking into the sea in County Donegal, Ireland, has described how the father of the infant passed her to him through a broken side window, told him to “save the baby” and then attempted to rescue the rest of his family. Davitt Walsh from Donegal, who swam out to the car, said the father, Sean McGrotty, had given the baby to him then gone back into the vehicle to try to get the others out. McGrotty died, along with four other members of his family. Speaking to RTE News last night, Walsh said: “It was terrible. I was out there. I was swimming. I didn’t know how I was going to help or what was going to happen. The baby was handed to me. “When it happened, the father looked at me and he had to make a decision. He could have saved himself because he was out of the car. But he went back into his family. I couldn’t do nothing else. The car went down instantly. “The younger child was trying to get out the back. The father knew deep down – he knew I was only going to be able to save one person. The thing he said, he handed it to me and said: ‘Save the baby.’ He went back and stayed with his family and the car just disappeared.” The child, Rionaghac-Ann, was taken to Letterkenny general hospital in Donegal where she was said to be “doing well”. Louise McGrotty, from Derry, Northern Ireland, was at a hen party in Liverpool when her husband, Sean, sons Mark, 12, and Evan, eight, her 59-year-old mother, Ruth Daniels, and her sister Jodie Lee Daniels, 14, drowned after the Audi Q7 they were travelling in slipped off the pier at Buncrana at about 7.30pm on Sunday. Five members of family who died in Co Donegal pier accident are named Read more Irish police are investigating whether the driver lost control of the four-wheel-drive car after it slipped on a thick buildup of algae towards the end of the pier. Sean McGrotty’s brother Jim said an “unspeakable tragedy” had been visited upon his family. “I was sitting at home when news of the tragedy started to emerge last night. My thoughts were for the families of those involved. Little did I realise then that it was my own family members who had died.” He singled out Walsh, saying: “On behalf of the family, we want to thank that brave man who swam into the sea and who saved the life of Louise’s baby Rionaghac-Ann. We have since found out that Rionaghac-Ann’s father Sean handed his baby daughter out of the window of the car into the arms of the brave man who dived in to help just seconds before the car sank with the other family members inside it.” Describing his brother as totally devoted to his family, Jim McGrotty added: “There has been a constant stream of callers arriving at the house since word of who was involved has become public. On behalf of the family, we wish to thank those people for their support and for their love at this very difficult time for us all. “Words cannot express the enormity of the tragedy which has befallen our family. We are all numbed by this tragedy which has visited us. If there is anything good which has come out of it is the fact that baby Rionaghac-Ann has been saved.” The slipway on the Buncrana pier in a Google street view image, dated September 2009, with algae growing on the surface. Facebook Twitter Pinterest The slipway on the Buncrana pier in a Google street view image, dated September 2009, with algae growing on the surface. Photograph: Google Maps Among those who called on the McGrotty family yesterday was Martin McGuinness, the Derry-born deputy first minister of Northern Ireland. “I have just come from meeting a young woman who has lost her partner, her two sons, her mother and her sister and it is a very, very sad house. Truly heartbreaking, mind-numbing and shocking beyond belief,” McGuinness said. Advertisement A witness in Buncrana, Francis Crawford, told Radio Foyle in Derry of the harrowing scenes around the pier. “I could hear them, the children in the car, as water started to come and that’s heart-rending in itself … Totally distressing and that will stay with me for a long time. “I was standing there in a totally hopeless and helpless position waiting on help arriving. It was hopeless, you need a boat there right away. By the time the boat arrived, there were already bodies in the water and they tried to resuscitate them but it was hopeless,” Crawford said. He also praised Walsh, saying: “Great that he did, he came back with a wee baby. I didn’t know how he got it, he said it was handed out of the window to him. He was shouting: ‘Grab the baby, grab the baby’. He was totally exhausted, I’d say if there was another five yards he wouldn’t have made it. He was taken to hospital then with cuts and different things, so heroic,” Crawford added. John Carter, of the RNLI, said he had never witnessed anything of this magnitude on Lough Swilly before. “It is a very distressing thing to deal with any kind of tragedy, but particularly when children are involved,” he said. Father Paddy O’Kane, the parish priest in the McGrottys’ home area of Ballymagroarty in Derry, also visited the family home on Monday. “The grief of the family cannot be measured. There is a numbness and stillness in the family home and my thoughts and prayers and the thoughts and prayers of the entire parish and further afield with those bereaved,” O’Kane said. One of the boys who died, Evan, had Duchenne muscular dystrophy, a muscle-weakening disease that starts in early childhood and for which there is no cure. He was with the Make-A-Wish Foundation charity which helps children with terminal illnesses and their families. Neighbours of the family said Evan’s condition was a life-limiting illness and his mother had been constantly raising money for the charity. All five of the victims will be buried on Thursday at 2pm in the Holy Family church in Derry. The mayor of Derry and Strabane district council have opened a book of condolences in the city to allow the public to express their thoughts on the tragedy. Thanks for reading

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