An Cosantóir

24 SEARCH AND RESCUE assistance and transport to hospital for seriously ill patients. One of those missions helped save the life of polocrosse player Shane Harris (31), who was riding his horse near his home in Fethard, County Tipperary in June 2020 when the animal reared up and fell back on top of him. Harris was knocked unconscious when he hit the ground. His partner, Kim Ronan, who was there with her father and two brothers, raised the alarm. Harris was airlifted to Cork University Hospital and treated for internal bleeding. He had punctured lungs, eight broken ribs and a broken collarbone. He made a full recovery and said he believed the ICRR air ambulance was the difference between him 'surviving and not surviving' the incident. The EAS took some 'learning' from the Air Corps experience in working with the Garda Síochána on its air support unit. As Bonner explained, there is a clear division of roles between the mission commander, who is the advanced paramedic, and the aviation commander, who is the pilot flying the aircraft. 'The mission commander takes the call and triages it, while I do my own risk assessment based on location, weather and fuel as aviation commander,' he explained. 'It is never a case that the mission commander will say to me that there's a road traffic accident in Limerick and we have to fly there. He will ask, "How are we fixed for Limerick?", and I will do the mental maths. If I say we can't, we stay put, as I am in charge of aircraft safety.' To ensure a degree of detachment, the aviation commander is not informed of the detail of the incident until well in the air. The team, including the mission commander, will have far more detail as they plan the flight in the operations room. Agricultural and equestrian incidents, road traffic accidents and severe illness are among the most frequent call-outs, and in the ten years that the service has been in place there is hardly a community in Ireland that has not benefited. The flights are often 'not very technically challenging' compared to search and rescue, Byrne explained. The difference is the immediate environment – 'you are often right in there in someone's home' – which creates a closer relationship with the casualty. 'I remember my first job on this service was to a 72-year-old cardiac arrest, and I thought in terms of 90 kilos of additional weight in the aircraft as I had been so used to flying search and rescue,' Bonner said. 'I was cleaning my sunglasses after we landed, waiting to be heroic, when I saw all the family members arriving and they were distraught, and it really hit me that here I was in this man's back garden and he had passed away. So, the emotional connection is different,' he said. 'I've been in Air Corps for 24 years – I've done Garda Air Support Unit, military, counterterrorism, VIP, search and rescue: I have instructed and commanded. I am a lieutenant colonel now, but I still volunteer to come down and fly as it has to be the most rewarding thing I have ever done,' Bonner said. In late 2021, Lieutenant General Seán Clancy became the first Air Corps officer to be appointed Chief of Staff of the Defence Forces. After joining the Air Corps in 1984, he undertook border operations from Finner army base in County Donegal, spending up to 120 days a year flying Alouette III helicopters across the border area. He flew search and rescue from 1991, becoming a commander in 1993, and spent a short time in Shannon during the early stages of the Irish Coast Guard before moving to Finner. He knew the four Air Corps helicopter crew who died in Tramore in July 1999 and was instrumental in the installment of the memorial bench at Finner after the crash. 'Tramore was a terrible shock for the organisation, but also a tragedy from which we had to, and did, learn,' he said. 'You have to learn from an event like this, and that is why it should never be forgotten.' During his time in search and rescue, he came to know many members of coastal communities, from lifeboat coxswains to lighthouse keepers like Vincent Sweeney at Blacksod in County Mayo. He was the pilot for a tasking after a vessel featured on RTÉ's Cabin Fever reality television programme ran aground on rocks off Tory Island, County Donegal in June 2003, helping rescue eleven people. He was also pilot when a lifeboat volunteer's sheepdog fell from a cliff near Ballyglass in north Mayo and had to be rescued. 'We put our crewman down, and once he got within about two feet of him, the dog made a leap! The winchman just managed to get hold of him, and his knuckles were white. The dog went mad when we landed him in a field – he

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