"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, Paul Curran, 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. Curran set off
at 11am on Friday morning with a Mr. John Starke. 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. Starke started to retrace his steps but, in doing so,
dislodged some stones and Curran was left stranded at the top
of a gully with a 400 foot drop below him. Starke 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. Starke 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."
