Motel guests save caretaker from sea

Press, 7 January 1987, Page 6

Motel guests save caretaker from sea

By

MATHEW DEARNALEY

in Rarotonga When a rogue wave snatched a caretaker, aged 74, into the sea off Rarotonga, Cyclone Sally seemed certain to have claimed its only life, but two former Canadian seamen left the Cook Islands yesterday with the satisfaction of having cheated the hurricane by saving the life of Mr Carl Hereford.

Mr Hereford thought the worst of the storm was over when he went outside to check the ground supports of a unit at the Kii Kii Motel near Avarua that had already been wrecked but a 10m wave lashed out and snatched him headfirst into the raging seas.

A motel guest who had the night before been evacuated from the wrecked unit, Mr Ray lebagliati, was outside also, but shielded himself behind a pillar. He turned around to see Mr Hereford bobbing about 200 m offshore and ran to fetch his friend, Mr Tom Anderson.

“I said, we’ve got problems — Carl is out in the ocean.”

The pair rushed over to the coral rocks to find Mr Hereford dumped about 30m from the motel with another huge wave crashing towards him. They hauled him ashore, turned him over to empty salt water from his stomach and covered him in blankets. Mr Hereford was unhurt apart from coral

cuts on hisleg. Mr lebagliati said, “We had to pluck him up before the wave came or c the three of us would have gone. We had to get him out of there at all costs.”

Mr Hereford, who is an American veteran of the Spanish Civil War but who said he could not swim and got seasick in a canoe, thought he was swept in and out of the ocean about three times before being rescued. Although he was swept out head-first at the start, he believed his instinctive action of turning around helped to wash him back ashore.

“I swallowed a heck of a lot of salt water for a guy who is on a salt-free diet.”

Seeing Mr Hereford in

the sea was the second shock of the morning for Mr lebagliati, aged 62, who like Mr Anderson, aged 49, is a former naval man from British Columbia.

The first was when he returned to his motel unit to find the glass frontage smashed by the sea and a rock in the middle of his bed.

Another guest, Mr Hal Souffay of Seattle, saw a wave roll over the motel swimming pool before receding and leaving it drained of water but full of coral rocks. The sea looked as though it was boiling spaghetti, he said.

The two Canadians are. adamant they will return to Rarotonga one day and say the joy of saving a life outweighed the hell of the hurricane.