DOUBLE DROWNING

Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 66, 11 December 1930, Page 13

DOUBLE DROWNING

Teacher Sacrifices Life EFFORT TO SAVE PUPIL Tragedy at Komako BOTH BODIES RECOVERED Dominion Special Service. Palmerston North, December 6. Two lives were lost by drowning this afternoon at Komako, 17 miles from Ashhurst, when a young lady teacher at Komako school, Miss E. Dommett, died in a vain attempt to save a pupil, Vernon Ferguson, aged 9. It appears that several small boys, Including the lad Ferguson, were playing in a small stream which leads into the Pohangina River, when Ferguson got into difficulties in a deep hole.

Miss Dommett, according to the pupils, plunged into the water, caught hold of the boy and swam around the hole with him in an endeavour to get to shore. However, she was forced to loosen her hold on the boy, from appearances losing consciousness. Miss. Dommett was carried down stream for some distance, where she was pulled tout by an eleven-year-old boy. She was then unconscious. Resuscitative measures were applied by residents, who were soon on the scene, but when a doctor arrived both teacher and pupil were dead. Miss Dommett, whose home was at Crofton, near Marton, was sole teacher at Komako School.