Céad míle fáilte help US couple through ordeal
Sharon McNamara suffered life-threatening injuries in a horse riding accident in Clare more than six weeks ago.
She and her husband Tom, who live 120km north of New York arrived on August 16 for an eight-day stay.
Tom, 66, said: “After some time in Dublin we travelled to Doolin.”
But when they decided to go horse riding, Sharon’s horse bolted and she was thrown against a stone wall as the horse raced out of control down a narrow boreen.
Sharon, 67, sustained multiple fractures, crushed her spleen and bruised her lungs. For over a month, she has been recovering at the Mid-Western Regional Hospital.
Tom said: “The doctors and nurses are wonderful, the technology is wonderful.”
Initially Tom booked into the South Court hotel near the hospital.
And then the Ireland of the Welcomes emerged magnificently, he said. He said: “I had to take clothes to the dry cleaners, the Early Bird in Dooradoyle, where I met the owner Dermot McNamara. When I got talking to him and we found we shared names; he said his mother was abroad and invited me to stay at her house. This is one of the most generous things that has ever happened to me. When I told my family back in the States they could not believe it.
“I go into the Unicorn bar across the road from the hospital to eat most days and when people heard about what had happened, they began to treat me as a local and I have made so many friends like the Anglim family. I love the Irish people and the care Sharon is getting is top notch.”
After the accident a member of the coast guard came to attend Sharon before an ambulance arrived.
Tom said: “That coast guard officer even came to the hospital to visit Sharon to see how she was getting on.”
Tom said that doctors are now preparing to allow Sharon leave the hospital and they hope to leave from Shannon in the coming days. “It is definitely still the Ireland of the welcomes, particularly when you really need it,” he said.
