LOST IN BUSH.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 20, 24 January 1929, Page 10

LOST IN BUSH.

THREE-YEAR-OLD BOY.

GREAT FIRES BLAZING.

FOUND ALIVE AND ASLEEP.

(From Our Own Correspondent.)

SYDNEY, January 18.

To be lost all night in blazing scrub and to emerge alive and unharmed was the amazing experience of a three-years-old Bankstown boy named Leslie Fawcett, who wandered away from his home while hit mother and father were fighting bush fires on Monday last. Excellent bush craft by a sergeant of police enabled the search parties, which scoured the neighbourhood for traces of the child, to locate his whereabouts from the cawing of a flock of crows.

The little boy was left asleep in the bedroom of his home at Bankstown, a suburb of Sydney on the Georges River. His mother and father were among a party of residents who were fighting terrific bush fires which swept through the district during th& present hot spell When his parents returned home they discovered the absence of the little boy and informed the police. The scrub for miles around was ablaze and little hope was held out for the discovery of the boy alive.

Several search parties were organised and the search started a few hours before nightfall. Every inch of the country, a hilly and rough neighbourhood, was combed. Several old waterholes and a disused well were dragged for traces of the lad, as it was thought that he may have taken shelter from the fires in the water and become drowned.

Finally the searchers came to Georges River, which is a deep and strong running stream flowing into the Pacific at Port Hacking. Though they refused to give up all hope it was confidently expected that the body of the boy would be discovered in the river. When daylight on Tuesday came dragging operations were commenced on the river, but without success.

It was then decided to make a further search of the blackened ruin of the scrub country again. Parties traversed almost

every acre of the country and finally Sergeant Wiblin, of Bankstown, found traces of the boy's progress through the gullies and hills, which convinced him that the boy was still alive. His party followed the trail for nearly three hours before their attention wa« attracted by the agitated movement# of a flock of crows, which was flying hither and thither over a little glen at the head of one of the deep gullies.

Scaling down steep rocks and over wide gorges they finally discovered tha three-years-old bov asleep in a glade, seemingly accessible to none except the most experienced and intrepid climber.

How the lad escaped from being dashed to death over the hundred and one precipices in the vicinity is a mystery which will never be solved. He wa* almost unharmed and except for torn clothes and a blackened face was quite cheerful. He wanted something to eat and his mother. Searchers were overjoyed when they were able to bring him home to his parents, who had been in other search parties, but had long before given up hope. They were mourning him as dead when the police brought him back to his home.

The boy had wandered many miles during the 30 hours that he was missing, but in his wanderings he had returned to within a mile and a half of his home.