16 HOURS IN SNOW

Ashburton Guardian, Volume XLVII, Issue 10888, 7 April 1927, Page 5

16 HOURS IN SNOW

MAN WITH A BROKEN LEG.

RESCUERS' ARDUOUS TASK

SUFFERER CARRIED FOR 21 HOURS.

To lie for 16 hours among snow with a broken leg many miles from a habitation was the unenviable experience of Mr Leslie Timpson, a musterer, aged 32, on Tuesday, on the hills behind the Mount Potts station.

The station is an isolated one near the head of the Rangitata River, on the Ashburton side of Erewhon, and Mr Timpson was engaged in mustering when he slipped on a patch of frozen snow as he was negotiating the crest of a high cliff. Unable to save himself, he fell over the brink, and crashed into the gully 60 feet below, breaking his leg. The accident happened about 9 o'clock on Tuesday morning, and it was not till some hours later that he was missed, when a search party set out, and found the sufferer some time after midnight, he having lain in the snow for nearly JL6 hours. Owing to the extremely rough nature of the country in which the accident occurred, the search party was set a real problem how to get the man down to the station. Sticks and coats were utilised to make a rough stretcher on which the injured man was placed, and then started a gruelling journey over many miles of mountainous country. Frozen snow made the task even more difficult for the rescuers, and work as hard as they might it was 21 hours before they were clear of the mountains. They reached the station in an exhausted state, and the sufferer was sent to the County Hospital, where he arrived last evening, nearly 40 hours after the accident happened. The Hospital authorities reported this afternoon that Mr Timpson was making good progress toward recovery.