A young boy who died after getting into difficulty in the sea off Lissadell Beach in Co Sligo on Saturday afternoon has been confirmed as seven-year-old Alan Singh from Ballisodare, Co Sligo.
The alarm was raised by members of the public at about 3pm when they saw the child in difficulty in the water.
Singh was a second-class pupil at St John’s National School, Ballisodare, which has instigated its critical incident management policy.
Sligo councillor Tom MacSharry said the community is in “shock at such a young boy losing his life in such tragic circumstances”.
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“His family, friends, classmates and teachers are all in our thoughts and prayers,” he said.
“We were just celebrating two new Blue Flag status beaches at Enniscrone and Rosses Point beaches last week, but we’ll certainly have to urgently review the safety measures at all beaches in light of this tragedy,” he said.
People who were on the beach on Saturday afternoon told The Irish Times the child was brought back to shore by some paddle boarders before two off-duty nurses carried out CPR on him until a paramedic winchman from the Coastguard‘s search and rescue helicopter landed.
They were joined by Gardaí and ambulance paramedics. The boy was airlifted to Sligo University Hospital where he later died.
There was an air of disbelief among campers and beachgoers at Lissadell Beach on Sunday, who said conditions were calm and the tide was out on Saturday afternoon.
The beachgoers said they did not realise anything was amiss until they saw the helicopter landing on the beach. Even then, many were excited, thinking it was just a training exercise.
Voitek Stachyra was looking through his telescope at the time when he noticed four adults doing CPR on someone in the distance. .
“We saw one of the gardaí running across the water. We thought the person was going to be okay. There were so many paramedics there. They took the boy into the helicopter. He was this size, tiny,” he said, pointing to his own seven-year-old son Peter beside him.
He approached an ambulance paramedic afterwards, who was crying, he said. He showed photos from his telescope of the paramedics and helicopter on the beach.
Another witness, Ryan Burns, said he wished he had seen the child so he could have helped. “I would never have thought something like that could have happened here. Everybody was shook ... It’s so sad.”
A man from Bundoran visiting Lissadell with his wife and six children for the weekend said they were playing dodge ball in the water when the tragedy occurred.
“We’ve been coming here for years ... We’ve been to every beach in the country and this is by far the safest we feel, genuinely,“ said the man, who did not want to be named.
