Coroner Commends Youth’s Courage

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31782, 12 September 1968, Page 16

Coroner Commends Youth’s Courage

(New Zealand Press Association) NELSON, September 11. The courage and perseverance of a 16-year-old Nelson College student, Stephen John Mori, in trying to save two companions in terrifying blizzard conditions on the Wangapeka Track, were commended today by the Nelson District Coroner (Mr G. P. Stewart).

The Coroner found that two youths, Christopher Thomas Stewart, aged 17, and James William Simister, aged 16, also students at Nelson College, died on August 30 by misadventure on Biggs Tops, near the Wangapeka track,

the cause of death being exhaustion and exposure when they were overtaken by a blizzard during a tramping trip. “I'put this sad event down to youthful inexperience,” said the Coroner. “They had planned the trip with some care, and the proper help of their parents, but made a fatal error of judgment when they set out too late in the day, over a route for which they had not planned in deteriorating conditions, and for which their experience and equipment proved inadequate.” The Coroner said he completely endorsed a police comment during the inquest that there was an urgent need for all organisations connected with back-country activities to bring home to young people the dangers of exposure. This should be done, the Coroner said, by training them to cope with exposure conditions should they be caught without shelter, and to impress on them the need to start out on a journey in sufficient time to allow for faulty route-finding, or injury within the party. “I can hardly commend Stephen Mori too highly,” the Coroner said. “He displayed great courage and perseverance in his efforts, in terrifying blizzard conditions, to save his companions. He did all, and even more than might have been expected of him.”