"Dawn Rescue for
Stranded Mountaineer"
Sunday Press, 10/7/77.
The Kerry Mountain Rescue Team spent more than 12 hours some
3,000 feet up on Ireland's highest mountain, Carrauntoohil, before
making a daring rescue shortly after dawn yesterday. The rescue
was made in the area where a Dutchman was killed last year and
where only a few months ago a local sheep farmer died after a
climbing accident.
The man, Denis Falvey (names changed), born in Dublin but now
living in England and home with friends for a holiday, had to
be brought up from an almost inaccessible position by rope. Mr.Sean
O'Sullivan, who led the rescue, told the Sunday Press that Mr.
Falvey set off at 11am on Friday morning with a Mr. James O'Neill.
When they were on a ridge between Carrauntoohil and Beenkeeragh,
about 3,000 feet up, they realised that they had taken the wrong
ridge.
"Mr. O'Neill started to retrace his steps but, in doing
so, dislodged some stones and Falvey was left stranded at the
top of a gully with a 400 foot drop below him. O'Neill managed
to reach Mrs. Mary Cronin at the Hag's Glen, who got in touch
with us, and with Michael and Paul Walker I set out on the rescue
mission."
Mr. O'Neill guided them back on the mountain path but became
exhausted. "We had to put him in a bivvy bag to protect him
from exposure and leave him on the mountainside while we carried
on" Mr. O'Sullivan said. Fog, mist and rain hampered them,
Mr. O'Sullivan said. The actual rescue was not easy. "We
had to take it very gently. He was below us when we spotted him
and Paul Walker went down to him on a rope. Michael acted as anchor
man and we got him up. We fed him with glucose tablets and took
him back to Mrs. Cronin's at the Hag's Glen, where he got tea."
