A NARROW ESCAPE.

Evening Post, Volume XXIX, Issue 61, 14 March 1885, Page 2 (Supplement)

A NARROW ESCAPE.

Constable Gordon, of Whangarei, has forwarded a report of the accident on the steamer Clansman, near Limestoue Island, in which Mrs. Boyd, wife of Mr. Boyd, storkeeper, Whangarei, and her infant narrowly escaped losing their lives by drowning. It appears that the s.s. Piako was in waiting on Saturday at Limestone Island to carry ths Clansman's passengers to the Bailway Wharf. The captain of the Clansman ordered the Piako alongside, and a small heaving lino was thrown to her. When the Piako got alongside the Clansman the captain of the former passed up a stout rope to make fast with, but when doing so the captain of the Clansman sang out " Never mind that, the rope you have will do ; make fast." The Clansman was then put understeam, and went ahead at the rate of five miles an hour. Meanwhile passengers were passing from the Clansman to the Piako by means of a. ship's ladder; a few had reached the Piako in safety when suddenly the line by which the Piako was made fast to the Clansman was broken by the former boat sheering slightly. At this moment Mrs. Boyd and infant, and Mr. Andrew Scott and infant wero on the steps ; the latter being near the top, seeing what bad happened, got quickly back on to the deck of the Clansman, but Mrs. Boyd being more than half way down was unable todo so. When the Piako sheered, and the line gave way, the steps got hoisted on a temporary stanchion in the Piako's bulwarks, and as the boat slewed were thrown over the stern, and they swung back against the Clansman's side with such force that the concussion threw Mrs. Boyd off the steps into the sea. Two of the passengers jumped into a dingy towing behind the Piako, while the captain of that boat threw the woman a lifebuoy, which she managed to grasp at first, but lost it shortly afterwards. The men in the dingy not being able to gr-t along to their satisfaction, when within 50 yards of the drowning woman a young man, one of the dingy, seized a lifebuoy and jumped overboard and swam towards her, placing it under her arm. By this time a boat from the Waitaki, which was lying at anchor between a quarter and half a mile lower down the river, came to the rescue, and she was - taken on board, and afterwards put on board the Piako, which reached the spot at the same time. No boat was put off or lowered from the Clansman, and it is said by those who were on board that the boats were fast in their chocks, and the blocks by which they are hoisted, instead of being hooked in their position on the boat, were fastened together and hauled taut between the davits. The woman was unable to swim, and had it not been for the prompt action of the captain of the Waitaki in having a boat lowered and put off so speedily, and the action of the men in the Piako's dingy, the woman must have drowned. As it was she was about seven minutes in the water, struggling to sustain herself and infant above water, and when rescued was in a very low state, aud is so still. — New Zealand Herald.