Car plunges into Clutha; two missing

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33774, 21 February 1975, Page 1

Car plunges into Clutha; two missing

(.Wit- Zealand Prcxn Axxuiiatmft > DI’XEDIX, February 20. An extensive land, water, and air search failed tn reveal any trace of two of the occupants of a ear which plunged over a 100 ft hank into the Clutha River, above Cromwell, on Tuesday night.

The two missing people are Michael Cyril Strange, aged 16, of Dunedin, and Lorraine Joyce Reid, aged 17. of Cromwell.

! A third occupant of the tear escaped. She is Yvonne i Reid, aged 19. also of Crom(well, sister of the missing girl. Constable J. McSkimming said tonight that Miss Yvonne Reid apparently travelled a short distance downi stream in the river, but maniaged to reach the bank and 'clamber up the steep rocky 'gorge to the road. She walked

at least a mile to raise the alarm.

The accident happened about 10 p.m.. when the car in which the three people were travelling, a 1955 model failed to take a right-hand bend about half a mile above Cromwell on the metalled Cromwell - Lowbum by-pass road, and plunged into the river.

The police and about 18 volunteers searched today for the car and its occupant*, but without success.

A jet-boat was used to search the Clutha River between the Cromwell bridge and Alexandra, and volunteers searched the river banks from the Cromwell bridge upstream to the point of the vehicle's entrv to the river. A search was also made by an aircraft, but the car ■ was not visible. Constable McSkimming said. The police believe that one iof the missing people. Miss Reid, might, have been I thrown from the car, but (that the driver. Mr Strange. I might still be trapped in the I vehicle. ' The river where the cat [entered is about 150 vards ' wide, and the current is very . swift.

Constable McSkimming said searches for the missing people and the car would lie made periodically.

I Miss Yvonne Reid, who was admitted to Cromwell 1 Hospital, was reported to be |in a satisfactory condition I today. She is suffering from shock and minor injuries.