Double trouble for grandmother in wheelchair

A WHEELCHAIR-USER grandmother in her 80s was at the centre of two dramatic rescues from flooded houses.

She is recovering in a Limerick hotel with her grandchildren.

Nora Mason, had to be moved from her old home in Springfield, Clonlara, on the outskirts of the city three days ago as efforts to keep flood waters from the Shannon at bay failed. But in the early hours of yesterday another major rescue operation had to be put in place to move her from her daughter’s house, nearby, as the flood waters rose.

Her son-in-law, Joe Quinlivan, said the family tried to save Mrs Mason’s own home by digging deep trenches and placing sandbags, but to no avail.

He said: “We had to use scaffolding boards to wheel her out of the house over the water into my car which I reversed up as close to the house as I could. She was very reluctant to leave the house where she has lived all her life. She was very worried about the carpet. Her house is under three feet of water.”

But Mr Quinlivan’s house just 30 yards away where she had been given refuge started to flood on Monday night.

Mr Quinlivan said: “Monday was breaking point. It was around one in the morning. We took out in her wheelchair and put her into the back bucket of a tractor. She was then driven up the road in the back of the tractor and still in the wheelchair she was placed on a low loader which went through the floods and brought her to an ambulance.

“The army and the civil defence and loads of local people came and gave us great help.

“The people of Clonlara came in conveys in tractors and trailers to help us. There were young lads aged 10 years of age wading through the water carrying sandbags. They lifted my heart.”

Nora along with Joe’s wife, Geraldine and their sons, Jason, 22, Philip, 19, John, 13, and Evan, 12, were last night recovering at Jury’s Inn in Limerick where they are being accommodated by the HSE.

Joe lost his job in Shannon six weeks ago. “I’ll get over that. I’ll get by,” he said.