A woman is in a critical condition in hospital this evening night after being rescued from a river in Co Clare.
A major search was launched after the alarm was raised at around 5.15pm when Gardaí and the Irish Coast Guard received a report of a person in the River Fergus in the Cloughleigh area of Ennis.
Two units of Clare County Fire and Rescue Service from Ennis station, including specially-trained swift water rescue technicians, were sent to the scene along with ambulance paramedics and Gardaí.
The Shannon-based Irish Coast Guard, Rescue 115, was also tasked and reached the scene soon after the other emergency services.
Members of Clare Civil Defence were also sent to assist in the search operation which was concentrated in the areas of the Mill Road bridge and Maid of Erin.
Firefighters commenced a search in the area where the woman, believed to be in her 20s, was last seen. Rescue personnel quickly located the woman in bushes on an island close to a weir and where the river spilts in two for a short distance.
After swimming out to reach the casualty, fire service personnel promptly commenced cardio-pulmonary resuscitation (CPR).
The woman was brought ashore on a fire service raft where further efforts to resuscitate the casualty using CPR and a defibrillator continued. The river was high and fast-flowing at the time with firefighters battling against a very strong current to recover the woman to the shore.
National Ambulance Service paramedics took the woman into their care and continued CPR before she was rushed by ambulance to University Hospital Limerick for treatment. She is understood to be in a critical condition.
