RIVER TRAGEDY

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXX, Issue 4873, 21 July 1936, Page 8

RIVER TRAGEDY

CRASH IN CAGE Suspended in mid-air for more than three hours in a small basket attached to a wire cable, 80 feet from the river bed, John Bain, an elderly man, experienced great anguish, following llhe death of R. Haydon in a bridge accident at Wauchope (says the Sydney Sun). Bain was slightly below Haydon when the cage in which the latter was working crashed. The cage grazed Bain in its wild descent. After witnessing his employer being smashed to death, Bain was compelled to remain in his perilous position for three hours before it was possible to pass the necessary equipment to him to enable a safe descent.

J. Hepworth, who was in the cage with Haydon, had a miraculous escape. When the cage crashed on the rocks Hepworth, who sustained only a few scratches, was able to scramble out of the wreckage, wade into the river, and carry out Haydon, whose body had fallen out of the cage, into the water. Haydon’s wife was on the river bank when the tragedy occurred, and immediately forded the river to go to her husband’s assistance.