Thirst Victim Saved From Death in Water

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXVIII, Issue 13025, 2 May 1940, Page 6

Thirst Victim Saved From Death in Water

DKsrERATK PLIGHT OF DUOVKU Adelaide. April 2 0 Death took two bites at Jack Hayes, an Adelaide drover in Central Australia, but he still lives. The story came first by pedal wireless from the interior and was then brought on by Ken Crombie. outback mail driver, who arrived at Marree to-day. Hayes, with three aboriginal assistants, was droving cattle from North to South Australia, when he struck trouble in a desolate area covered by thousands of sandhills. They came to waterhole after waterhole, but all were dried up.

Horses were dying fast, and Hayes decided to turn round. Only one horse was alive out of 21.

The men laboured painfully hack to the last "live" waterhole in their tracks, driving the solitary hack, which was too far gone to he ridden. The water, they remembered, was at Dead Man’s Sandhill, named after another traveller who had perished at the spot. There was a trickle still in the hole. It saved the lives of al. Paradox - Creek

Waterbags were laboriously refilled, and Hayes resolved to make in another direction—for Clifton . Hills Station.

Struggling on foot, mile after mile, over inhospitable country, the men were astonished to come upon a deep creek running wide and strong —another of the paradoxes of this strange country. Ahead of the others, Hayes tried to swim across, but in mid-stream his weakened frame gave out. One of the aborigines, cleverly using the current, which swirled towards one bank at a curve, got Hayes ashore.

The party, with the solitary horse, reached Clifton Hills . Station exhausted.