CHARMED LIFE

Greymouth Evening Star, 1 November 1946, Page 4

CHARMED LIFE

CHILD FALLS 48 FEET IN LINER A baby aged two years and a half fell 48 feet from a deck of the liner Rangitata to the iron floor of the engineroom, 'and survived. This was stated by passengers aboard the ship when she arrived at Wellington this week. Missing the child on deck, its father saw an open doorway. Far below the child was lying unconscious on the iron floor. The father recovered the baby. Semi-conscious, with a fractured skull, the. child lay at death’s door for five days, and reports- were to the effect that the Rangitata would put into Gibraltar to permit its burial ashore. However, the baby did. not die, and a fortnight before reaching

New Zealand, it was running round the deck.

On his arrival in Wellington the child, Richard Sharp—nicknamed ‘•Rickie” in England, to be amended to “Riki” in New Zealand —appeared none the worse for his experience. | The ship’s surgeon, Dr. D. Hayes, I stated that “Riki” bore a charmed life, ' and had made a remarkable recovery. He was a splendid patient. His father, Mr. R. H. A. Sharp, of Auckland, who I has returned to New Zealand after nine years’ absence said he could not ! believe that such a miracle could happen. Mrs. Sharp commented that her family must be lucky. Her brother was seventeenth in a party of 19 Canadian prisoners of war who were being executed one by one soon after D-day. I When 16 had been killed, Allied intervention halted the executions.

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