Quick work saves girl

Press, 5 October 1985, Page 1

Quick work saves girl

By

BRAD TATTERSFIELD

Cindy Mosey told her rescuer that her mother and father had been in the plane as she was pulled from the cold, calm water of Tory Channel yesterday. “She was very, very cold and wet. She was about at the end of her tether," said Mr Chum Thomas late yesterday afternoon. Mr Thomas lives with his wife, Mrs Mavis Thomas, at Te Iro Bay on Arapawa Island, just under Ikm from where the power line crosses to the mainland. At 12.30 p.m. they were in their garden when they heard an “enormous explosion.” “I looked out, and I saw the plane come down,” said Mrs Thomas. “It turned and dived nose-first. The whole wingspan hit the water — I didn’t see it break into pieces.” Mr Thomas ran down to the water’s edge, pulled his 5m runabout down a slipway and “tore over” to where the aircraft had gone down.

He said that the ferry Aratika had put down a lifeboat, although its engine was not working. He looked about and saw a small amount of wreckage on the surface, then he heard screams.

“I saw the girl in the water. She didn’t have a lifejacket on — she was treading water.” Cindy Mosey told Mr Thomas as he tried to pull her into the boat that her wrist was broken, and so he changed his grip. “I wrapped her in blankets to try to keep her warm. She coughed a little bit of blood. She had broken ribs.”

Mr Thomas said that the girl did not say much, other than that she was very cold.

He took her to the Aratika’s lifeboat, which by now had started its engine, and transferred her to it.