Help Calls Not Heard

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32273, 16 April 1970, Page 1

Help Calls Not Heard

(N.Z. Press Association) AUCKLAND, April 15. Two elderly women spent a night of horror on board a launch in Omaru Bay, Waiheke Island, on Tuesday after having seen the husband and nephew of one of them drown. The women shouted for help and banged pots together for 13 hours before they attracted the attention of a resident of Omaru Bay at 8 a.m. today. Searchers later found the body of one of the drowned men. He was

Stanley Charles Kelly, aged 69, of Karaka Road, Beachlands.

The search will continue tomorrow for the second man, David Victor Kelly, aged 30, of Awaroa Bay, Waiheke Island, nephew of Mr Stanley Kelly. The tragedy happened

about 7 p.m. on Tuesday after Mr David Kelly had rowed a dinghy from his uncle’s launch to his own runabout—--80 yards away—to get some tinned food.

An Awaroa Bay fisherman, Mr W. J. C. Gordon, who dragged the bay with a net in the search for Mr David Kelly, said that Mr Stanley Kelly, his wife and his sister-in-law then heard the younger man shouting for help. “His uncle rowed over in another dinghy and found him in the water,” said Mr Gordon. “Mr (Stanley) Kelly got hold of him, but must have tipped his own dinghy over when he tried to pull him into it.” Holding his nephew,' Mr Kelly made his way through the water to his own launch, but the two women could not reach him. Soon afterwards both men disappeared.