Two US tourists rescued as car plunges off Kerry pier

Two American tourists were rescued yesterday after their car plunged off a slipway into the sea on Valentia Island in Co Kerry.

The couple, who are believed to be in their 70s and staying in Killarney, were rescued yesterday by a local man whose rescue skills are normally practised in the warmer waters of the Mediterranean.

Mike Moriarty, 21, was drinking a pint at the pub in the Royal Hotel in Knightstown when a woman who was finishing her lunch tapped him on the shoulder and said she thought she saw something going off the slipway near the clock tower ledge.

“I looked and couldn’t see anything but I walked over and I could see a silver car in the water,” said Mr Moriarty.

He had arrived home on Sunday on holidays from Malta where he works on a yacht.

Alongside the slipway wall, he could see a silver car nose down in the water and two elderly people inside.

I took out my phone and wallet and jumped in.

However, he could not open the driver’s door.

In order to rebalance the car, he went for the back door and this action immediately allowed the water in and the nose of the car to right itself.

“It equalised the pressure and I was able to open the driver’s door,” he said.

The couple had been visiting the island in convoy with three or four other cars also believed to be from the US.

Mr Moriarty suspects it likely the driver may have thought he was in reverse, but instead the car surged forward and plunged off the ledge.

“He may have pressed the wrong pedal. They were very shook up.”

The silver Skoda Fabia hire car was taken from the water by a garage and the couple got a lift back to Killarney from others in the convoy.