A dying dolphin’s life was saved when a dozen heroes ran to its rescue after it swam too close to shore and got stranded.
The dolphin’s dramatic death dodge occurred on Monday at Spa village beach, near Tralee, in Co Kerry.
Bighearted locals sprang into action and transferred the dolphin to nearby Locke’s Beach at Fenit where it was released into Tralee Bay.
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The exhausting six-hour operation began when the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group received an afternoon alert about the dolphin’s emergency.
They then rang Spa resident Graham Kelliher, 50, who rushed to rescue the stranded dolphin at the beach.
Graham, who owns the Surf and Sail shop in Tralee, told the Mirror: “I was at the beach with my sons Cody, eight and Kai, 12, within five minutes.
“We took buckets and wetsuits and found the dolphin in shallow water during low tide.
“Some people were there already, like Ger O’Donnell [Fenit RNLI Lifeboat Operations Manager], and we could see that it was a common dolphin.
“These are medium-sized, bigger than a porpoise, but smaller than a bottle-nosed dolphin, which can be the size of a cow.
“It had been stranded for three or four hours, judging by how high the tide was. It was stuck in muck.
“The kids were getting buckets of water and wetting towels and we were trying not to let the dolphin get too stressed.
“I put out a message for help on social media to say time is crucial. The response was amazing; there was real community spirit.
“After an hour of keeping the dolphin calm and making sure that it wasn’t flapping too much, we got a four-wheel drive onto the beach.
“We used tarpaulin to get the dolphin onto an RNLI stretcher and then into the SUV for transfer to Fenit.
“There was another team on standby there. We were getting advice on the phone from the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group, so we knew to go very slowly.
“We had to make sure that the dolphin’s lung hadn’t collapsed and to make sure that the dolphin could steady itself when we let it go.
“After 45 minutes or so, it eventually swam off on its own. It was brilliant to see.”
He added: “The moment is captured in a video on our shop’s Instagram account. You can hear everyone clapping and cheering.
“There was a great sense of achievement and togetherness.”
However, tragedy struck two hours later when witnesses spotted a dolphin dying on nearby rocks.
Graham said: “We don’t know if it’s the dolphin which was rescued or another one, but it died and the fear is that it could be ours.
“Sometimes we hear stories of dolphins coming to shore to die. Or it could’ve been tired and disorientated and swam onto the rocks.”
It is not the first time that hero locals in Spa and Fenit have rescued dolphins from the Kerry coast’s blue flag beaches.
A pod of six young dolphins swam ashore at Spa in July 2009 but were quickly turned around and safely guided to deeper waters.
Dolphins are often spotted in the area and helped to save the life of Ruairi McSorely, 25, from Derry, when he got into difficulty in August 2021.
Ruairi had set off in a pair of swimming trunks from Castlegregory Beach to swim the 9kms to Mucklaghmore Rock in Tralee Bay.
When his clothes were spotted on the beach, Fenit RNLI lifeboat was launched to search in case someone was in trouble.
Ruairi was alone and exhausted in the bay, was hypothermic, and the evening light was fading.
By the time that he was plucked to safety 4kms from the beach after several hours in the water, a pod of dolphins had surrounded him to protect him.
Lifeboat crews described it as a “miracle” rescue.
Ruairi had previously been dubbed Frostbit Boy when a video of him discussing heavy snowfall in 2015 went viral online.
He said after his life was saved and he was taken to University Hospital Kerry: “It was only a matter of going into the hospital to heat up a bit.”
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