Pair see the funny side after being swept off feet by giant wave
The owner of Fastnet Mussels was inspecting the road on the Sheep’s Head peninsula in West Cork along with council worker, Jimmy Griffin, when the two men were literally swept off their feet by the huge wave.
John was lifted up off the road and over an embankment into an adjacent field. As soon as he managed to get to his feet, he ran in search of Jimmy.
“He was thrown into a bog on the other side of the ditch about 30 yards up the road. He was waist-high in water when I found him. So there he is, in the middle of a bog with his hand up in the air trying to protect his mobile phone. It was very funny,” John said.
John, a fisherman, concedes it was funnier in hindsight and that the pair had a lucky escape, although Jimmy’s phone, now defunct, did not. John, an experienced diver, admitted he was lucky to have been swept inland and not out to sea.
Last Monday’s drama was caught on camera by local photographer, Adrian Cronin, and appeared on the front page of yesterday’s Irish Examiner. John subsequently featured on Today FM’s Ray D’Arcy Show where he recounted how he had no control over what happened.
“I’m six foot and this wave was maybe eight or nine foot and the force took me straight back. It just came out of nowhere and just took me.”
John had been discussing repairing the road with Jimmy because his livelihood is dependent on timely shipments of seafood from his shoreline factory to customers in France, Germany and Italy.
“I was videoing a hole in the ground so my video was on and you can see the whole thing going black and the wave going over me. I was carried maybe 75 feet over the ditch and down into a field at the back.”
John said he called to Jimmy on Monday night and the council supervisor said “I thought we were gone”.
The final bill for storm damage in the county could be as high as €5m, according to a county council official. Cork County Council’s director of roads services, Tom Stritch, said the bulk of the damage had been inflicted on coastal areas of West Cork.
He said he estimated damage to coastal roads and infrastructure on some of the islands would run to at least €2.1m.
“We have included €700,000 for the islands in that figure, although we haven’t been able to carry out a full assessment on them yet. We also believe it will cost in the region of an additional €400,000 just for the clean-up,” Mr Stritch said. He said a further €775,000 would be needed to repair coastal defences and pontoon bridges.
“We have told the Department of Environment that at present we’re looking at around €3.3m.” But that was only a preliminary estimate.
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