She may not swim again

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33626, 30 August 1974, Page 1

She may not swim again

Sandra Blewett, of Auckland, who abandoned her attempt on the English Channel on Wednesday, may never swim again. Miss Blewett, aged 24, was lifted from the water after 4J hours with suspected slipped discs. She was eight miles from her starting point at Cap Gris Nez, France, the Press Association reports. Later she was rushed to Canterbury Hospital, Kent, receiving oxygen as she went. A doctor there said she probably had two slipped discs in the lumbar region.

Miss Blewett was stopped in mid-Channel by a similar ailment while attempting a crossing last year.

Although in considerable pain, she was well enough to leave the hospital without being admitted. The

doctor said: “I doubt whether she could carry on swimming, because this condition is likely to recur.”

The captain of her pilot boat, Mr Reg Bricknell, a veteran Dover fisherman, said: “Sandra was crying with pain in the water, while she tried to keep going for half an hour. “When we got her to shore the ambulancemen had to give her oxygen and she did not speak except to say she was cold.

“Just before the pain started she had to swim 100 yards through an oil slick which had been dropped by a boat just ahead.

“But she wouldn’t give up and when she got on board the boat she was sick—probably because of the oil slick.”