John along with his mother at Tullagh Beach today. Pic by Newspix Irl.
The young farmer who sparked a dramatic rescue yesterday has said he believes he was simply “in the right place at the right time” when he heard a drowning fisherman’s cry for help half a mile away.
John Grant’s amazing story has made national headlines today after his alert sense of hearing led to a man’s life being saved.
John, 23, was tending to sheep near Clonmany yesterday afternoon when he briefly thought he heard a cry for help in the distance.
He jumped on his quad bike and headed towards the sea.
He asked other walkers on Tullagh Beach if they had heard someone crying for help but they said they had not.
Determined John continued to listen for the voice and when he looked out to sea he saw a man in the distance waving his arms for help.
John, who also work at North West Memorials in Muff, revealed “I just couldn’t believe it. I knew I had heard something but nobody else had.
“It was only when I actually focused on the sea that I could see this person flapping his arms and waving for help.
“I was simply in the right place at the right time. Anybody else would have done the same. I’m just so glad I listened to myself in the first place,” he said.
John, from Binion, Clonmany, contacted his mother and she alerted the Malin Head radio station who set about scrambling coastal emergency services to the scene just before 2pm.
By that stage the man, a local lobster fisherman, had been in the water for more than an hour and a half.
The man was pulled aboard a local boat and then transferred to the Lough Swilly RNLI lifeboat who wrapped him in blankets and then brought him ashore.
He was then met by the 118 recue helicopter which had been scrambled from Sligo and brought to Altnagelvin Hospital in Derry where his condition is said to be stable.
Joe Joyce of the Lough Swilly RNLI, who took part in the rescue, said it was simply amazing how John was able to hear the man’s cry for help over such a distance.
“It’s simply hard to believe because his voice had to carry over sand dunes and it was almost half a mile away.
“Whatever happened John Grant’s actions are the reason why this man is alive today and he deserves great credit for it,” he said.
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