CRIPPLED WOMAN RESCUED

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 70, Issue 125, 11 March 1950, Page 3

CRIPPLED WOMAN RESCUED

\ HOUSE ENDANGERED BY FIRE (P.A.) WIIANGAREI, March 10. A former New Zealand professional wrestling champion, Lofty Blomfield. rescued a crippled woman from a house at Maungataperc which w.as endangered by lire yesterday. Leaping a stone wall on the* Maori Department’s property, which was beng cleared by a departmental officer, the fire swept down a gully towards the farmhouse of Mr C. S. Stevens, just below the brow of Maungatapel~e hill. Fortunately Mr M. Hoe, of the Lands Department, Inspector Gardiner, of the Transport Department, and Blomfield, all of Whangarei, were passing in separate cars and they not qnly raised the alarm but helped to save the house after a strenuous fight. The well-known wrestler entered the building and carried Mrs Stevens, who is crippled, to his car. He also tried to remove a truck from an adjoining shed, but could not get it to start. However, it was towed to safety by another truck, with only minutes to spare.

About 30 Power Board and dairy factory employees and neighbouring farmers, were called to the scone and they saved the house by drenching it with water in spite of the flames coming within four feet of it. It was only this week that the Bay of Islands County Council decided to offer to reimburse a farmer for the loss of a suit of clothes which was ruined when he fought a fire which had broken out on a bridge which, but for his efforts, would have been destroyed.