NOT REMEMBERED.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 29, 4 February 1935, Page 8

NOT REMEMBERED.

HOURS IN WATER.

NEVER HEARD SEAPLANE. FEAT OF ENDURANCE PRAISED Though Jliss Bcntlmm was in the water for over throe hours, and though during all that time she continued alternately to swim and to float, it was learned this morning that she neither realised the time elie wns in the water nor the methods she took to preserve her own life. After the first shook of not being able to. get back to the beach, and of seeing the lifeline fuil to reach her, time seemed to drift past, so that she lost all record of it. After a while she just kept on swimming and resting automatically. When she had been far out from the beach for some time, she lost any acute sense of her danger. She jni-t drifted up and down in the water roughly parallel with the coast. Though .Air. Holt said that she was able to grasp the boathook from the seaplane, she did not remember doing it; in fact, she did not even hear the machine's engine, nor did she sco it land. When she grasped the boathook it must have been instinctively, because to-day she did not recall being rescued at all. It is scarcely possible that she could have lasted much longer. Her memory did not begin to function again until she arrived in FlightLieutenant Wallingford's • house, where she received attention from his wife. That was the first incident that she remembered distinctly after she .had been carried out. She did not wish to discuss the matter at all this morning, and she will not be able to see visitors for a day or two. Conserved Her Strength. "Plow .Miss Bentliam stood the cold for three hours I do not know," said Xll". Holt. "It was not only a wonderful feat of endurance, but also of courage. Not many people could have kept their heads as ehe did. They would have exhausted themselves in futile struggles, perhaps not at first, but certainly after an hour or so had passed, without apparent hope of reseue. Fortunately she wai not only a fairly good swimmer, but she also \vea> wise enough to conserve her strength by alternately swimming and floating. By this means -he just about held her own against the I :'bb tide, with eoine hope of reaching the shore when the tide turned, though <he would probably have been too exnausted and numbed by cold to do so without assistance." Surf Boat Needed. The experience of yesterday very forcibly impressed on everybody the necessity of having surf boats at such beaches us Karekare, said Mr. Holt. Swimming in a heavy swell, the man who went out wilh the line had little hope of sighting the person whom he was trying' to rescue, unless a hand was waved,' for, with his eyes only a few inches above the water, his view was shut in by the waves all around him. Tt was very difficult; also, to take directions with any degree of accuracy from the people ashore. From a eurf, boat, however, a wider range of vision was obtainable, and a person in difficulties could be found and picked up much more quickly.