SMART RESCUE

Hokitika Guardian, 9 January 1932, Page 5

SMART RESCUE

DROWNING BOY’S ESCAPE, (By Telegraph—Ter Tress Association) WELLINGTON, January 8. A smart rescue lrom drowning in the Hutt River was effected on M etlnesday afternoon by Gilbert Daniel, Oi Lower Hutt. Daniel was one of a party who were swimming just below Aleliiiig Bridge, close to which there is a deep hole, and, the river being in flood, the current was running rapidly. The party had left the river mid had gone up the bank to some bushes to dress when wild calls for help reached their ears. Daniel, who is 15 years of age, clashed into tile river, where a boy named Maurice Dawson, aged 12, not being able to swim, was vainly struggling in the deep hole. Dawson disappeared alter the final call for help, but, fortunatley, he canio to the surface in an unconscious condition in time for Daniel to seize him before lie was swept down the river.

Daniel, who refused to say anything about the incident, stating he did nothing out of the ordinary, had learned life-saving, and he knew exactly how to handle the boy,, whom lie brought safely to shore, where he recovered eonseiusness.

Another swimmer, Miss Patou, also plunged in to the rescue, but, being higher up the river than the hoy, who was being swept away by the current, she did not reach him before he came opposite Daniel. The hoy was taken home, and is little the worse for his experience, 11,, had been riding a small pony, which he had urged into deep water, and lie was sewpt oil' its back by the current