Diver injured in search for bodies on sunken boat
The search for the bodies of three generations of the same family lost off the Irish coast was suspended today after a police diver was taken to hospital suffering from the bends.
The diver was being treated in a decompression chamber at hospital in Craigavon, Co Armagh.
The head of the Police Service Underwater Search Unit, Sergeant Elvin Leech, volunteered to go into the chamber with his colleague, said a spokesman.
The injured man was expected to make a full recovery.
The injured officer was taken to hospital suffering from pains in his arms last night after diving on the wreck in more than 140 feet of water seven miles off its home port of Kilkeel, Co Down.
Another member of the team was injured earlier in the search, suffering from a ruptured ear drum, said a spokesman.
He said the dive would have had to have been suspended for 24 hours tomorrow anyway, because of regulations governing how much time divers are allowed to spend in deep water.
The Tullaghmurry Lass went down in the Irish Sea in mid-February and the wreckage was only recently discovered after a lengthy search.
Police divers who have been down to the wreck are confident at least some members of the Greene family, father, son and grandson, are still in the prawn vessel.
In the last few days various parts of the wreck have been brought to the surface as the divers work their way towards where they hope to find bodies.
