Hero Cork man saves 12-year-old boy stranded at sea

"He told me he thought he was going to die but I just reassured him and told him he was going to be fine"

A Cork man has been hailed a hero after saving the life of a 12-year-old boy who was stranded on a pontoon.

Kevin Power was out walking his dog with his partner when he noticed a group of people surrounding a pier after the young boy had become stranded on a pontoon and was drifting out to sea. Power spoke on the Neil Prendeville Show on how the events unfolded:

"Last night myself and my partner were sitting down watching TV and we said we’d to take the dog for a walk down by the pier because it's close to the house. I saw a load of young people there and a lad out on a wooden pontoon on his own.

"They had a life buoy out to save him and another one was about to go in to save him. I asked him not to because there was a very strong current so I said I would run home and get my kayak."

The father of three explained how the young boy had gone into shock and was panicking as he was being carried further out to sea:

"I ran home, got the kayak and got into the water. At this stage the guards were there with the life buoy so I had brought it out with me. I kayaked down the river and got it to him. He was very distressed and panicking.

"When I got to him he told me he thought he was going to die but I just reassured him and told him he was going to be fine and just to bare with me. He wanted to get off the pontoon but I told him stay on it and sit in the middle of it. I tied the life buoy onto the pontoon and kayaked in with it.

Quick thinking and brave Kevin was left with burns on his hands as a result of pulling the boy, who couldn't swim, in to safety.

"It was across the tide and there was a lot of resistance, I have burns on my hands from the rope. I told him in the worst case scenario he could get off the pontoon and grab onto the life buoy and I’d swim in and pull him if I had to come off the kayak because he couldn’t swim.

"I was talking to him telling him we were getting closer. It was no joke, I’d get one pull on the oar each side and it would nearly pull me clean out of the kayak.

Thankfully, both Kevin and the boy managed to get in safely, but Kevin acknowledged that things could have gone much differently:

"The guard had called the coast guard prior so when I got in I shouted over to them to let them know he was okay and they took him away.

"I didn’t sleep at all after it. I was just worried about what could have happened to him and his family. He was well out of sight by the time I got down. If he’d gone further out it would have been a completely different story.

"His mother rang me last night. She just couldn’t thank me enough. She was sick over it and I was just glad he was home and safe with her, thank God for that."