FALL DOWN CLIFF

Gisborne Times, Volume LXXIII, Issue 11950, 22 May 1933, Page 2

FALL DOWN CLIFF

.MAN’S REMARKABLE ESCAPE

RESCUERS ’ DIE FIG I'Ll ..TASK

YYhiic mustering on the high wtutfy on the Leatham run. Air. Aleyauder A.. Y\ ard, son oi Air. G. J. Ward, of Blenheim, met with a sensational accident, falling headlong oyer a- precipitous cliff .and being saved from death in the rocky creek bed a thousand feet below only"by the fact that his downward progress -was arrested by a tough shrub. He ..is now an inmate of the Stafford Hospital.

Mr. YYar-L with a party, had been mustering above the snow line in tiw steep and precipitous back country •jf the run, states an exchange, ana found himself ahead of his section when he reached the lip of an abyss some 200 ft. in depth, at the bottom of which flows Boulder Creek.

When waiting for the others hcplaced his staff against a rock near the edge of the cliff and leaned against it. Either the rock gave .way or the staff slipped, and the man was precipitated headlong. He fell a sheer 60ft. in one drop and wa? then caught in a shingle slide which carried him. unconscious, a further O i' or 70ft.. but fortunately he was brought up against a stout tavhine bush, which arrested his progress 011 the extreme edge of a further sheer drop of 120 ft., . followed bv a steep descent of 100 ft. to the creek bed. The descent by rescuers to the creek bed, lowering an improvised stretcher from one man to another, occupied two and a-harf hours, after which the stretcher-bearers. Messrs. John Jackson. Joseph Reynolds and YY r . Lane, were faced, with a sevenmile trek down the rocky gorge, often up to tlieir middles in the icy snow water. They had to cross and recross the creek ever 30 times, audit was carrying n fair volume ci water. In’ addition. ' mauv steep spurs had to he negotiated.