Roscommon Search Deployment

1 May 2020

On Wednesday evening 29^th April Roscommon Civil Defence was activated by Roscommon Garda Station for assistance in a search for a missing male in the Knockcroghery area of Co. Roscommon. The man was spotted near the railway line south of Knockcroghery in the Athlone direction.

The initial request was for a drone team to do a fly over of the railway track from Knockcroghery towards Lecarrow. Contact was made with the drone team and they were deployed to meet Gardaí at the railway crossing in Knockcroghery at 7pm.

As this operation was on an active railway line a member of Irish Rail was also deployed to assist in the operation. A number of areas of interest were identified from the aerial photography captured. Due to rain and deteriorating weather conditions the operation was stood down at 9pm.

A remote meeting took place through Zoom later in the evening between the Civil Defence Officer, Assistant Civil Defence Officer and Search Managers and a plan was agreed to assemble at 9.30am on Thursday 30^th April at Culleen Hall, close to the last known sighting of the missing person.

Assistance was sought from the Galway Civil Defence unit for another Drone team to join the operation on Thursday morning. Contact was also made with the Civil Defence National Communications Officer, Kealan McMoreland seeking a Search Dog to assist in the operation. Search team members from Roscommon Civil Defence were contacted and in total 15 personnel were involved in the operation along with Gardaí, locals and Irish Rail personnel.

As the group were assembling for a briefing another sighting was reported to Gardaí, who were also on route for the briefing. The person was located adjacent to St John’s Church on the Roscommon Athlone Road.

Roscommon Civil Defence would like to thank all those who were ready to commence with the search operation, particularly the support from the neighbouring Galway unit, the national K9 resource and of course the Roscommon volunteers who made themselves available in such numbers at short notice.

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