MAN SWEPT OFF DECK

Press, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22017, 15 February 1937, Page 8

MAN SWEPT OFF DECK

HEAVY SEA IN COOK STRAIT

' SAVED BY CLUTCHING IRON RAIL

BANDSMAN GOING TO NELSON

(PRESS ASSOCIATION TEL3GBA.W.) WELLINGTON, February 14. Thrown from the deck of a vessel as she lurched in a particularly heavy sea, in which a rescue would have been impossible, a passenger on the Matarigi clutched a rail as he was swept off the deck and pulled himself back as the vessel rolled to the other side. He was R. A. Shearer, a compositor, aged 27, of Island Bay, and he was a passenger on the Matangi, which was making a daylight crossing of Cook Strait to Nelson on Saturday, taking bandsmen to the New Zealand championships at Nelson. Shearer is a member of the Institute Band.

The vessel was having a very rough trip in the strait, a heavy sea running. Shearer was on the lower deck and was walking from one side to the other, when a huge wave struck the vessel and it suddenly lurched in the direction in which Shearer was facing. The passenger was hurled across tne wet deck on which he could gain no footing. His shin struck the seat of a raft which was battened to the deck and he hurtled over the side of the boat, Presence of mind saved him, for. as he left the deck, he seized one of the lower iron railings and saved himself from falling into the heavy sea from which rescue, under the conditions would have been impossible.