A CO TYRONE born nurse has spoken of how her training helped survivors of a drowning tragedy after a whale-watching boat sank off the Canadian coast.
Five British people died and an Australian man is still missing after a freak wave struck as sightseers crowded to one side of the top deck of the vessel near Vancouver Island on Sunday.
The nurse, Sheila Simpson who is originally from Strabane, helped to comfort survivors.
Speaking to the BBC's Good Morning Ulster programme, she said they appeared "shell-shocked".
"God put me there on the dock, and thank God for my training in Omagh and in the Royal in Belfast," she said.
"I just stepped into the place where I could be of assistance.
"The survivors who could walk up off the deck were shell-shocked and I looked them in the eye and I put my hand to their back and I said 'you are alive, you have survived'."
Stephen Thomas of Swindon was the youngest of the victims. Aged just 18, with Down’s syndrome, he died alongside his father Thomas (50), a committed Christian.
Twenty-one people survived the tragedy, including three crew.
