Escape from car in flooded river

Press, 16 September 1976, Page 3

Escape from car in flooded river

PA Palmerston North “All I could think of was that I’d never see my wife and children again,” a 33-year-old Hawke’s Bay man said yesterday as he described his terrifying ordeal in the flood-swollen Tamaki River near Dannevirke on Tuesday night. One minute, the Taradale quantity surveyor, Raymond Eddy, was driving his late model car across a wooden bridge on the main Dannevirke - to - Pahiatua highway, and the next he was fighting for his life as the upturned car was carried away by the raging torrent.

“I moved close to the side of the bridge to let a truck pass,” he said, “and clipped the side rail.”

“The next thing I was in the river, the car was upside down, and I couldn’t free myself from the safety belt.”

Mr Eddy said the shoulder strap seemed to have slipped and there was no way he could free himself as the vehicle was carried down the river. “Then all of a sudden the back window popped and the water started to pour

in. I was still upside down and I really believed I had had it. The car was filling up very quickly and the water actually covered my head. I don’t know for how long, perhaps about ten seconds, and then a miracle happened,” he said. His car suddenly righted itself, and he was able to slip out of the belt. He then crawled from the car and went ashore.

Waiting on the bank was the truck-driver, Mr John Bryant of Hawera, and some other passing motorists, who helped the shaken driver ashore.

“I really thought my time was up. It’s a miracle 1 got out of it — and with only the odd bruise,” he said.

Within half an hour of the incident, Dannevirke police had given him some dry clothing, and the truckdriver drove him home to Taradale. A search on Tuesday night by the police failed to find the car, but at first light yesterday morning it was seen in the middle of the river about a half mile from the bridge and an attempt to recover it was to be made later if the river level dropped.