Fifty-six years after he was pulled from a canal in Limerick city, New York father of four, Michael Downes, finally got to meet his rescuer, and say "thank you".
The Brooklyn native was seven years old when he slipped and fell into the Canal Bank in Corbally, while visiting his Irish relatives, in July 1963.
Seventeen-year-old Micheál Mulcahy, from Garryowen, was the local hero who put his own life on the line to save the drowning American boy.
Until today, the pair had never met or spoken, as Downes had left the scene before an exhausted Mulcahy finally emerged from the canal in his drenched clothes.
The two men embraced one another during an emotional reunion at Mulcahy’s home in Parteen, in the city.
Downes hugged and kissed Mulcahy and told him: “Thank you. If it wasn’t for you I wouldn’t be here and my kids wouldn’t be here . . . Unbelievable.”
“It took me fifty six years to come back and say thank you. You are a true hero,” he said.
“I’m glad you came back. You haven’t changed a bit,” Mulcahy joked.
Downes said the incident is forever etched in his memory: “I remember it like it was yesterday. I can still see the bottom of the canal, and the chain hanging out of the wall of the canal, and the garbage down there.”
“I got real calm and I thought - that was it - and then all of a sudden, next thing I know, somehow, I’m coming out of the water . . . somebody came for me.”
Screaming
Mulcahy, who was working nearby, heard other children “screaming” for help, and he raced to the water’s edge.
“No one went in. They were screaming to get a rope. There was no sign of you,” he told Downes.
After diving in, the Limerick father-of-four spotted Downes, who, he said, was not moving.
“And going down and looking for you, and the next thing I spot you down on the floor. You were (so) close to being (dead). Once I lifted you off the ground, I got my shoulders underneath you and up and screaming for a rope.”
“I never saw you anymore. I was left inside (the canal) and everyone took this young lad and left me there. I’ll never forget it,” he recalled.
After regaining consciousness and vomiting water from his lungs at the side of the canal Downes said he walked home to his granny’s house, and didn’t mention his brush with death.
“I was just a kid, I just thanked God I got out of the water. It was all so unreal,” he added.
One of Downes’ four sons visited Mulcahy ten years ago to thank him for saving his father, but Mulcahy said he always hoped he would finally meet the boy he saved.
Downes said he had promised his Limerick mother who passed away last March he would make the trip to Limerick from his home in the US to meet Mulcahy.
“My mom was the connection, so I figured it was time for me to come. I figured I owed it to my mom, so that’s why I came, and I’m so glad to meet Micheál.”
Downes’ wife, Linda, cried as she looked on at the pair.
“Michael has been wanting to thank him since it happened. He’s my soul mate, and if he had (died) I would never have met him and we would never have our (four) boys. I’m gonna start crying again.”
Downes (63) and Mulcahy (73) toasted their reunion with a glass of Irish whiskey before visiting the scene of the dramatic rescue.