SWEPT TO DEATH

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 24, 29 January 1923, Page 7

SWEPT TO DEATH

LANDSLIDE AT LITTLE RIVER

SECOND BODY RECOVERED

THE SOLE, SURVIVOR'S GRAPHIC STORY.

(IT TILEMAPI.—PRESS ASSOCIATION.)

CHRISTCHURCH, This Day.

The body of James Howard, the sco ond man lost in the.Little River landslip, was found on Sunday evening, covered with' 1 debris, in the middle .of the "Puaha Creek, two miles from the camp and eight chains fr6m the spot where Griffith Pidgeon's body was found. How. ard was badly mutilated, and-■ almoafa unrecognisable. Howard's wife lives ai Westport. ; HELPLESS IN THE FLOOD Frederick Pidgeon, the ■ sole survivou of the three men who were in the grasscnttecs' camp when the flooded creek oaused a landslide, is now in the Christohurch Hospital suffering from cuts on the fact, head, . and body. He had a" miraculous escape from a dreadful death. " "My brother and I were in one tent, and Howard wag in another one by himself," he said. "The creek began to roai^ and big stoiiss and boulders went down it. My brother and, I were used to that kind of thing, but it became so bad that we 'got the wind up.' We were lying in the tent with a candle burning, and I said to my brother, 'I don't like it.' He-said, 'I don't, either.' "I suggested that we should get up and go into a hut close by where we cooked our meals. Just'then there came a terrific roar. I said, 'Come on,' and I rushed for the hut, but before-1 could I reach it, I felt that something had caught me, and lifted me high in the air. I was not unconscious, but only semi-con-scious. In the rain and dark T was hurled along in a mass of mud. water, and sticks and stones. Sometimes it seemed to open and then press all around me. During my struggles I saw alight in a hut belonging .to Mr. Humphries, and I managed to work my way towards it, and was taken in and attend-, ed to. ( I must have been carried quite a mile, but I seemed to_ go very rapidly. The experience was awful, and I . would rather die than go through it again. I did not see my brother alive after we rushed out of the tent. I did. not sea Howard onoe after the alarm. 1' STRIPPED BY THE TORRENT. I When rescued, Frederick Pidgeon was absolutely naked, his clothes having been torn off him in his struggle for life in the boiling creek, and he was in a terrible state of exhaustion . He had a terrible experience while being washed down the creek, but he was able to catch hold of a tree and stop his progress. The body of Griffith Pidgeon was found lying on the road a short distance above the hut where Fred Pidgeon was rescued. A vine was tightly drawn round his neck,' death apparently being due to strangulation. Great heaps of debris were brought down by the flooded -creek, and a large heap of debris marked the spot where the body of Griffith Pidgeon was found and wbsjre his brother Frederick was res. cued. - ■ '■■''.: FAMILY CUTS ITS WAY OUT. ' Mr. J, V. Chapman's house, which is within a few yards of the creek, was badly damaged, the walls being smashed in, but the inmates escaped by | chopping away the timbers with an axe. Other houses suffered damage by watea which backed up to a depth in some instancestof three feet. Mr. ■ Fenton, one of the rescuers, states that at 1.5 a.m. he was awakened by a noise, and was in the act of dressing when he saw someone looking in- ai; a window: He said: ''Is that you, Watkins ?" and the man replied: "No; it's Fred . Pidgeon; come and give me a hand." He opened the door, and Pidgeon fell in in a heap, exhausted. They fixed him up in a warm bed, and gave him stimulants. " ■ • Latex', Fenton and Hansen went to> the assistance <of the others. At fivsi: they had no light, and could see nothing in the pitch darkness. They went up a road a short distance until they were stopped by the debris. While on the load they passed something that they thought was a iree stump, but which afterwards was found to be the body of Griffith Pidgeon. They then went back and put a candle in a bottle, which they used as a lamp. % ■' ■ ■ Fred. Pidgeon asked them to see if James Chapman, whose .house was at the'foofc of the slip, was still alive. The house was eventually reached, but they] found it deserted. , Griffith Pidgeon had left his home in Little River, where his parents are old residents, only yesterday. He was a married man, and leaves a widow and one ohild a week old. Mrs. Pidgeon is in a private nursing home in Christ* church.. ..,' .