PINNED UNDER TREE.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 55, Issue 166, 27 April 1935, Page 3

PINNED UNDER TREE.

BUSH WORKER'S ORDEAL. SWARMS OF ANTS AND FLIES. Albert Mullard, aged 45, timbergetter, of Mandalong, New South Wales, was pinned by a falling tree at 10 a.m. recently, and lay helpless until a search party found him at 8 a.m. the next day. During the 22 hours of his solitary ordeal, Mr Mullard was tortured by ants and flies. Throughout he suffered intense pain from a deep wound, extending from the thigh to the right lower leg, which was caused when the tree struck him. At one period he was in danger of being burned to death by a fire which he had lighted before the tree fell.

Mr Mullard left home at 7 a.m. He made his way up rugged mountain country to a place which he selected for sleeper cutting. He made a fire and started work. Then a tree struck an impediment as it fell and forced him to the ground. He was pushed back on a rock, and when he tried to move he could not. Ants soon surrounded him. Swarms of blowflies attacked his wound. Though he took off his jersey and tied it round the leg—to stop the flow of blood and keep the flies away—the wound was badly blown. lie had brought food with him but it was out of his reach.

Hungry, thirsty, and suffering terrible pain, Mr Mullard was threatened with a new. peril. The fire which he had made was burning toward him, and he feared that it would catch his clothes. He tore at his shirt until he se&ured a piece of it large enough for use in beating out the flames. Gradually, at the expense of intense agony, ho extinguished the smouldering grass within Jus reach. The fire burned on, but away from the spot where he was lying. When Mr Mullard failed to arrive home at sundown, his wife became anxious. Her nearest neighbour lived two miles away, " and she could not leave her children immediately. Early next morning, however, she sent the news that her husband was missing to neighbours. Search parties organised. The fire that had threatened Mr Milliard's life "then proved his salvation. It was still burning high on the mountains, and it led the searchers almost directly to the point at which he was lying. They improvised a stretcher from saplings and coats and brought him down the mountain side until they were met by ambulance bearers, who had brought a motor ambulance to within five miles of the scene of the accident. Mr Mullard was admitted to the Newcastle Hospital.