Foyle Search and Rescue was set up in 1993 in response to the number of lives lost to the River Foyle.
During 2017 our volunteers gave 17,000+ hours of unpaid service to our community.
During this period, Foyle Search and Rescue were involved in a total of 338 incidents, which is up 45 % on the previous year.
Our volunteers rescued 17 people from the river.
Sadly we were involved in returning the bodies of 6 people to their families.
There were 129 instances where distressed people were taken away from the river’s edge or bridges.
We approached a further 186 people we thought may have needed our help, and if so were signposted to an appropriate agency for further help and guidance.
Our Swift Water teams also provided support to the statutory agencies in August during the flash flooding in the city.
From 1993, we have rescued 367 people directly from the river, helped in excess of 3231 potentially suicidal people, through the direct intervention of our volunteers during duty nights and emergency call outs and sadly recovered the bodies of 135 people who lost their lives in the river.
This would not have been possible without the continued generosity of both the local community and statutory agencies, for which we are extremely grateful.
We look forward to a very eventful year in 2018, during which we will be recognising our 25th year pf providing an effective suicide prevention and water rescue service to our community.
