Dáithí O Sé has recalled the devastating moment he tried to save his father’s life, after he suffered a heart attack.
The presenter’s father, Maidch Dainin, passed away on August 29, 2013 at the age of 71.
Just hours before his death, the RTÉ star took his father to the pub for a few pints, to celebrate the fact that he had beaten lung cancer.
Speaking on The Lisa McHugh Podcast, Dáithí said: “We were having great fun, and then the following morning my mother started calling my father’s name, and I said ‘Jesus, there’s something up here.'”
“So I went up anyway and put my hand on my father’s arm and he was cold,” he explained. “It’s a different type of cold. It’s kind of a dead cold, I’m afraid that’s what it is.”
“He was drawing in his last breath, so I was trying to wake him up and he wasn’t responding at all.”
At the time, Dáithí’s wife Rita was pregnant with their first child, Michéal Óg.
He continued: “We put him down on the floor, Rita was there. I said, ‘Rita will you get back Jesus.’ [Because] she was with child.”
“I remember I did CPR and mouth to mouth on my father, he was on the ground and my mother was sitting on the couch holding his arm, and I just had to look up at my mother and say, ‘Mom I think he’s gone’.
“We called the ambulance and I stayed doing CPR until the ambulance came around 10 or 12… but you know when somebody’s gone.”
The Rose of Tralee host welcomed his son, Michéal Óg, just months after his father’s death – and in tribute to Maidhc, he named his baby boy after him.
