FIGHT FOR LIFE.TEERIBLE JSIGHT ADVENTURE IN THE MEBSEY.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLII, Issue 7399, 27 February 1902, Page 4

FIGHT FOR LIFE. TEERIBLE JSIGHT ADVENTURE IN THE MEBSEY.

One of the most thrilling stories of a fight for life against the fury of wind and sea is that of the two survivors of the Southport boating disaster, who struggled ashore exhausted in the early hours of a Tuesday morning last month. During a gale on the previous Monday night four men left a Frenoh yes3el in the Mersey in a small sailing boat, and attempted to make for the shore. They were "Professor" Lloyd, the well-known and intrepid diver, a Cuwtomo officer named Norman, and two others named Bromley and Cummings. It was a desperate venture and came to a dramat c end. The tiny craft was very soon dismasted by the gala, and then the four men were faced with the tremendous task of pulling to the shore j in the teeth of the gale, with the j alternative of being swept out to sea and swamped by the raging waves. Hour after hour they pulled for their lives, bub the shore they could never make, and at length the exposure and hopeless toil overcame Lloyd and Norman, who sank unconscious in the boat. Cummings and Bromley continued pulling until the boat grounded on a sandbank. They then determined to plunge into the water and see if they could , wade to the shore.

Lights wero visible through the dark- 1 ness, and they set out on their j perilous way. But they had not gone far from the boat when they sank in deep water and were nearly drowned. Again and again they j fought their way through the waves, and again and again they were baffled, for deep water surrounded the bank. Their position suddenly became still more porilous, for they lost sight of the boat, where their dying : companions lay, and they then had no hope save to fight their way to : the chore. It was a terrible experience, and only the dim liphts in the distance guided them. In desperation, they Fought again a passage to the phore, and, half-dead from the cold and exhaustion, they at length succeeded, and reached the dry sand It was then 6 o'clock in the morning, and all night they bad been fighting tbe desperate battle for life. The boat has been washed up on the shore, and, from its appearance, it was quite obvious that it had never been oaps : zed. It is believed tbat J;loyd and Norman also made an attempt to walk to the shore, but all hope of again seeing them has been abandoned. Amoug the many sensational things that Lloyd will be remembered by is his dive from London Bridge, attired in all his clothes, on October 18th, 1899. Twice he dived from moving trains on the Liverpool Overhead Railway, and once from the Lancaster Aqueduct Bridge, 80ft high, into 6ft of water, after three deaths had occurred in attempting the same feat.