GREENMEADOWS TRAGEDY

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 21 January 1927, Page 9

GREENMEADOWS TRAGEDY

SURF CLUB’S GOOD WORK. SWIMMERS IN EXHAUSTED CONDITION. Though on their own well-sheltered beach the Opunake Surf Club has had few calls on its services, it‘gave evidence yesterday that, faced with the supreme test of efficiency in the strong undertow of the outgoing tide on a beach four miles away, its members were of the right material. In endeavouring to find the missing Miss Hammond and Mr Pennington, who were drowned at Greenmeadows, the club comported itself creditably. That the Greenmeadows beach is like the majority on the coast, and should never he entered carelessly on an outgqing tide, was proved, not only by the tragedy to people apparently unfamiliar with the coast, but also by the Surf Club members. From their own account the club was well prepared for the call. Its gear was all in good trim, and the members had even at that moment terminated a practice. Air Meuli, a member of the Opunake Seaside Society. nicked up six club members as soon as the alarm was received m Opunake. He led Air Fred. Loescli and his party at great speed along the Alain" South road. The members say that the most remarkable work o. the club was not so much the. recovery of the body of the drowned girl as the recovery without cHsunlty of sorr»e of their own members, who had become exhausted in their search for the missing people, and who were quite unable to make their way through the tow of the surf unaided. The club had sent out Messrs G. Harrison. C. Falkner, R, Brighouse and P. Brooker, four of its best swimmers, into the surf, and three of them remained in the water after Aliss Hammonds’ body had been recovered. It was seen shortly afterwards that, in spite of desperate efforts, the thret members were unable to make their way back. Air J. Harrison then went out with the line again, and reached his brother after a long struggle through the surf, and was towed with him hack to the shore. G. Harrison had been carried much further out than Brooker and Brighouse. who had the good luck to encounter the line as the Harrisons were being towed in. G. Harrison, who had been carried out beyond the breakers, was not in so exhausted a condition as "-Brooker and Brighouse. who requried some time to recover from the pounding they had received from curling combers breaking from a height of ten feet. The members had boon some half an hour in tlie boiling surf. When Brooker recovered the girl s body. W. Smith, the club’s belt man, came out with the line and took the body ashore. Three of the “supports’ were unable to go back on the line, because it would have broken under 'the strain. When W. Smith reached the others in the surf a conference was held among the supports and the belt man as to who was to go hack with the line, it being capable of taking onlv one of the supports. Falkner, being the youngest, was sent back. Those remaining knew then that they could not get back without the help of of the line. NO SIGN OF BODY. Search for theb odv of the late Mr Pennington was continued throughout the morning and again this afternoon. Constable Clouston searched the beach from the Taungntara to Lnmhie’s shack at tho Oeo without result. At 2 o’clock this afternoon there wore a dozen cars and many people still watching the rollers come in. An inquest, for the purpose, of identification. on the body of Aliss Hammond will ho held in the course of the next 21 hours.