Coleraine Coastguard Rescue Team has been tasked on Wednesday evening (June 19) to reports of persons in difficulty, swimming off rocks at Portstewart Strand. They said: “Passers by had called the Coastguard and then used Council-provided throwlines and floats to reach two swimmers. One person entered the water to assist the swimmers ashore.
” Advertisement Advertisement Did you know with an ad-lite subscription to NorthernIrelandWorld, you get 70% fewer ads while viewing the news that matters to you. That person was local surfer Daniel McAleese who was out walking when he heard a woman screaming that she could not see her friend in the water. Speaking to BBC NI, Mr McAleese said: “She was obviously in a lot of distress as she had not seen her friend in over a minute.
Myself and the girl tried to locate a head bobbing up somewhere. I was incredibly concerned. "Eventually I saw a tuft of hair pop up and jumped in there.
I managed to get a hold of the girl and get her face and mouth above the surface; at that point she wasn’t responsive but after about 20 seconds she regained consciousness." He said that a "few bystanders came down to help me out, as eventually I was close enough to the end of the cliff that they could throw a life buoy at it. We gradually got her on to a level area to pull her in from," he added.
Advertisement Advertisement He said the woman had cuts from being banged against the rocks. "When something like this happens, you don’t have a huge amount o.