JOURNEY FOR HELP

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 1, 2 January 1937, Page 12

JOURNEY FOR HELP

AN AMAZING EFFORT DOCTOR'S WARM PRAISE (By Telegraph.—Press Association.) INVERCARGILL, January 1. The journey made by Mr. David Gunn immediately after the aeroplane crashed at Big Bay was described by those who were at Big Bay as an amazing feat, and the doctor said that by his covering a journey usually made in four days in twenty-one hours, much of it by night, Mr. Gunn had possibly saved two lives. One of the eye-witnesses of the accident, Mr. Gunn did a big part of the rescue work. His knowledge of bush- : craft was invaluable in the building of the improvised stretcher that made so

much easier the carrying of the injured passengers over hundreds of yards di sandhills to the trampers' hut.

The rescue done. Mr. Gunn set out on his tramp of nearly forty miles for help. He walked four miles to Lake McKerrow, rowed 13 miles on the lake, and then walked, or rather climbed, fourteen miles of track across the main divide, arriving at the public works telephone placed at the camp in Hollyford Valley for emergency use almost 24 hours after the accident had occurred. Only those who know the nature of the rough mountain country could appreciate the merit of the trip and the almost superhuman speed with which it was done.

The doctor said that experienced tramp ars would regard three days as very Cast time for the trip, but Mr. Gunn. who had previously worked untiringly in the rescue of the injured, made it in less than one day. The trip could not be praised too highly, and the quick time in which the news of the mishap had been sent to Invercargill had enabled much-needed medical assistant to be at Big Bay within a day.