Elderly farmer hospitalised with hypothermia “back up and talking again”

An elderly Galway farmer hospitalised with hypothermia after being without power and heat for 14 days in his home, is “back up and talking again”. 

The Dunmore pensioner, aged in his 70s, was found by a neighbour in a weakened and distressed state in his kitchen. 

The man was suffering from hypothermia and brought to Portiuncula hospital in Ballinasloe.

Joe Sheridan, publican and member of the Dunmore Traders Association, told RTÉ Radio News at 1 today how the man was discovered in his house, which had no power or heat for two weeks in the aftermath of Storm Éowyn.

“A neighbour was helping him out with foddering the animals but he had deteriorated over a couple of days. Thankfully this morning, I rang his good friend, he’s back up and talking again,” he outlined.

Mr Sheridan said there had been a “real fear" for the elderly farmer when he was found, and his plight was not an isolated incident.

“The majority of our most vulnerable in the community are older men who may have underlying health issues. We came across a lot of this with the GP and our vulnerable list.

“We’re finding that men are tending to cocoon in the house the older they are and we have had frost for the last few nights.

“We have visited homes in the more isolated areas that are clustered and out of power. We have 20 clusters in the North Galway area of Dunmore and Milltown. Most of these are in very isolated areas and are at the tail end of the grid in this part of the county.

“What we are beginning to find is that there is a gender issue here. Older men in the community who have underlying health issues are way more isolated than their female counterparts and that is being backed up by our GP as well,” he said.

Mr Sheridan explained that local mini-hubs had been set up where a house in a particular area would act as an emergency response hub for that part of the community. He said some areas would not be back to full power for another six or seven days.

He believes that a faster acting response like FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) in the US, involving a national, regional and a county wide programme, was needed. He said this would help address blackspots in future storms.

“We lost a lot of time by not having communications between the different bodies, the local authorities, the HSE, us on the ground and the local communities. And the message that people really need to take on is if the communities have the tools, they can activate and endure on the ground,” he said.

Mr Sheridan pointed out that on December 26th 1934, the town of Dunmore had its own generator, “a mini-grid ” upon which essential services could operate.

“Nearly a century later, we were left with no operation of generators or electricity to our essential services for six days. We have to learn from that.

“We have applied for a communal generator of 200 KVA that would drive the doctor, the pharmacy, the hub, the hot service , and the community would have been four days better off in that scheme. We would have been able to handle it on the ground in our own community.

“We need to attach importance to items like power and satellite communications to ensure that people in communities can care for their own people,” he said.