Boy Rescued From Ordeal On Cliff

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31513, 30 October 1967, Page 1

Boy Rescued From Ordeal On Cliff

(New Zealand Press Association)

AUCKLAND, October 29.

A Maori boy spent about 2 J hours stuck lalf-way up a 70ft-high cliff at St Helier’s Bay, Auckland, on Saturday evening, before being hauled to safety in darkness by police and firemen.

The boy is 11-year-old Jacob Nepia, of Apirana Avenue, Glen Innes, whose brother John, aged 13, had earlier tumbled and slithered 35 feet to the beach. The boys were gathering pipis with their mother, Mrs M. Nepia, and their seven-year-old sister Lynette, when, after climbing half-way up the almost-sheer cliff face, the two boys found they could go no further.

John said later: “When we got stuck we tried to go down again, but I slipped and fell to the bottom. I cut my nose and scratched my leg. When I picked myself up, Mum was coming, because Lynette had told her we were stuck. Jacob was still stuck up the cliff." Attempts by nearby residents to rescue Jacob with ropes from his precarious perch were unsuccessful, and police and flremen were called. Station Officer J. P. Harrington, of the St Heller’s

Bay Fire Brigade, was lowered by rope to the trapped boy, whom he grabbed by the arms. The two were hauled to the top of the cliff by Constable F. W. G. Crisp and a party of firemen.