Dolphins ‘Warning’ Rescue Team To Lost Swimmer Stranded At Sea For 12 Hours
A swimmer lost off the Irish coast for nearly 12 hours owes his life to a shoal of dolphins. The clever marine mammals caught the attention of the rescuers, who eventually found and rescued the afflicted man!
A few days ago, rescue teams from the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) unexpectedly got help from a shoal of dolphins to find a missing swimmer. The man was missing for 12 hours, but somehow managed to survive and was found by volunteers surrounded by a group of bottlenose dolphins, the BBC said.
“At 8:30 PM, the Fenit RNLI lifeboat crew found a shoal of dolphins and a head above the water 2.5 miles off Castlegregory beach,” rescuers said. “The casualty was conscious and was immediately taken to a lifeboat and transported to the port of Fenit where he was hospitalized.”
The man, who did not give his name, told rescuers that he was trying to swim to a small rocky island five miles from the beach where the clothes were initially found. Within hours, several people on the beach found the man’s discarded clothes and reported it to authorities, and a search began.
Despite the fact that the man had been at sea for a long time, he was only “hypothermic and debilitated”, but will soon recover. According to the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group, this dolphin species has been seen off the coast of Ireland only since 2019.
Meanwhile, rescuers said they were very lucky to have found the man alive. They also raise awareness of the people who go to the sea and let others know.
“There were a lot of dolphins around when we found him,” Finbarr O’Connell of RNLI told local media. “Maybe they helped him in some way or another. Who knows?! But he was very lucky.”
