VAIN EFFORT.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 27, 1 February 1940, Page 16

VAIN EFFORT.

RESCUER AIRMAN

IRON LUNG BREAKS^-DOWN

BOTANY- BAY /CRASH.

(From Our Own coriosponacnt.) SYDXEY, January 20. The iron lung at St. George District Hospital broke down while-doctors weie fighting on Monday to .save the Mo ot an airman, but the medical superinten - ent of the hospital said, later .that the brief failure had . made no difference^ the airman's case had been hopeless. XJic airman concerned Was Pilot-Instructor A F. Brown, 24, who was married less than a fortnight to Miss Linnea Pereival, of Sydney, sister of Captain Percival, designer in England of the Pcrciva Gull 'planes. Brown liad gone up in a Gipsy Moth training 'plane with an Air Force cadet named Harold Robert Cox to practice forccd landings, on tlie nradflats 01 Botany Bay. The 'plane failed to come out of a sjiiral dive from a height 01 300 feet and crashed nose first intp a mangrove swamp. The crash «a=> seen bv fishermen, who hurried to the 'plane. They found Cox lialf-twisted in the rear cockpit, with a deep cut across his forehead and one leg broken. He asked what time it was and how long he lia.l been in the 'plane, and when asked, n he liad a mate could only say, Buster (Brown's nickname) in a dazed voice. Dog Barks and Digs. : The fishermen were about to leave the 'plane, but an Irish setter they lia<l wifcu til cm refused to leave and .began balking and trviiig to dig into the" mud wathhis paws. * The fishermen,, with the police, who liad arrived -by this time, tlieii. began feeling . around the \ front part' of the 'plane, which was buried fourfeetin the mud. Tlicy found Brown still strapped in his seat. . The impact of the crash had almost closed the cockpit • over his head. He had been in -the £ .wrecked 'piano for 40 minute's,% but as-:lie j\yas still breathing lightly it is believed that the 'plane must have settled down in the water gradually and- that he had „ not been immersed very. long. He was rushed to hospital, and. placed in the iron i lung and when the pumping motor failed airmen friends kept the > hand pump going until • the motor_ wasr.e paired. Brown, "however, failed to 1 respond-to the teeatment and ,had to .".be pronounced dead. .

Rescue Efforts . One of liis closest friendg; Shepherd, a city,.photographer, Ij that tlie rescue efforts 1 from start to'finish." IHe drcla rc f t T I tho ten-year-old ambulance vij? Brown was taken to hospital eon',! only 25 miles an hour, icaclied" the hospital 'Browns it for half an hour. but these statebill? were ■ bottf denied by the aiUliontiii cerned. -He also stated ambulance at was.'aifesjl Korce trnek which could than 20 ni.p.li. It was this:trtittVv e 3 took Cox.to hospital. .It next day that the Mascot'/dro^y -jil been provided with a new amWtteiWl ■ a; -l