Child found floating face-down in river

Press, 27 January 1988, Page 4

Child found floating face-down in river

A child was found floating face-down in the Heathcote River shortly after her mother discovered she was missing. The coroner, Mr A. N. McLean, found that Renee Joy Axford, aged two, died of drowning on November 20, 1987. Constable James Bennie said the child had been with her mother, who was helping a relative shift into a house on Waimea

Terrace. At 2.45 p.m. the mother noticed the child had gone, and began to search for her.

Soon after, Mrs Natalie Malett, who was walking by the river, noticed what appepred to be a child floating face down in the river near the Malcolm Avenue footbridge, 500 m from where the child had gone missing.

Mrs Malett called to a girl nearby to help and

went to a house to call an ambulance. No one was’at home at the house and when she returned to the river the girl was having difficulty getting the child out of the river as the bank was steep.

Other people came to help and an attempt was made to resuscitate the child. She was taken to Christchurch Hospital where further attempts to revive her failed.