Woman swims 5km to save husband
NZPA-AAP ‘ Mackay A woman lashed her semi-conscious husband to their overturned dinghy, kissed him goodbye, then battled for three hours through mountainous seas off the east coast of Australia to reach shore and help. The woman and her husband were last evening recovering . in hospital in Mackay, on the Queensland coast, after her heroic swim, through huge seas whipped up by 20km/h winds. : The police said Beryl Cocker, aged 54, of Bucasia, swam almost skm to get
help for her husband, Richard, also 54. The couple were constantly battered by rough seas after their 3m dinghy overturned on Sunday. The police said waves were 4m high and the water was cold. The pair clung to the boat’s anchor rope for about three hours before Mrs Cocker began a desperate swim to save her semiconscious husband’s life. She tied her husband to the boat with a piece of rope, and wearing a lifejacket and dress, began her swim to shore about 2 p.m. “She kissed him goodbye,
wondering if it would be the last time she saw him,” said a friend of the couple, Mrs Gloria Neilson, of Mackay. At 5 p.m. Mr Steve Trueman, aged 16, of Mackay, saw Mrs Cocker battling towards the shore at Half Tide Beach. “I was just sitting on the beach and I saw this person in trouble. She was waving her arm so I ran across the rocks and dragged her out of the water. She was exhausted,” he said. When Mr Crocker was pulled out of the water at 5.30 p.m. he was unconscious. The couple had set out for Victor Island, from Half Tide Beach, at 10 a.m.
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Press, 23 October 1984, Page 4
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282Woman swims 5km to save husband Press, 23 October 1984, Page 4
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