Two elderly US tourists had to be rescued after their car plunged off a slipway and into the sea off Valentia Island in Kerry on Tuesday.
The couple, who are in their 70s, were spotted going off the pier and into the water by a woman at the Royal Hotel in Knightstown, and she alerted local man Mike Moriarty who was also there.
21-year-old Mike explained, “I looked and couldn’t see anything, but I walked over and I could see a silver car in the water.”
After seeing the car nose-down in the water with the couple inside, he said he “took out my phone and wallet and jumped in”.
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Moriarty works on a yacht in Malta and had arrived in Kerry on Sunday for a visit home.
He explained how he couldn’t open the driver’s car door after jumping into the water, but he managed to open the rear door which equalised the pressure and then was able to open the driver’s door.
The couple had been visiting Valencia Island with a convoy of three to four other cars that day, one of which drove them back to where they were staying in Kilkenny after the accident.
Moriarty added, “[The driver] may have pressed the wrong pedal. They were very shook up.”
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