Cork rally to raise funds for medical charity

Tue, 28 Mar, 2023 - 13:57

Eoin Kelleher

A Cork charity rally featuring internationally renowned legends of the sport will tour the south-west of Ireland later this year to raise funds for CRITICAL, the emergency medical response charity.

Déjà vu Cork ’23 will see 150 historic rallying and supercars leave Little Island in Cork on September 9 and embark on a 140-mile route taking in many of the classic Cork 20 and West Cork Rally special stages. It’s the ninth event in the series which has raised more than €300,000 for charity.

The non-competitive rally will include a lunchtime parade through the streets of Clonakilty and will culminate with a gala dinner at the Radisson Blu Hotel, Little Island in Cork. All proceeds from the event will go to CRITICAL.

The charity provides pre-hospital emergency care to critically ill and injured patients in their local communities through its network of volunteer Emergency Medical Responders.

The charity has volunteer critical care doctors in Mayo, Donegal and Dublin and will soon have teams in Meath, Kildare, Wicklow, Waterford and North Cork.

It is also exploring opportunities to expand its network of Volunteer Responders into more communities over the coming twelve months.

Micheál Sheridan, CEO of CRITICAL said: “Our volunteers are tasked to serious incidents by the National Ambulance Service. We’ve kitted out their Critical Care response vehicles with a specialist medical kit essentially bringing the Emergency Department to the patient.

“The equipment, entirely funded by donors, allows our doctors to use their experience to perform complex and lifesaving medical procedures at the scene.” It costs of €25,000 to establish an Advanced level Volunteer Doctor in the community and €120,000 to put a new Critical Care response vehicle on the road.

Déjà vu Motorsport was created in 2016 by two retired motor sport enthusiasts, Alan ‘Plum’ Tyndall, the creator of motorsports TV programme RPM and former rally co-driver Beatty Crawford.