STRANGE ACCIDENTS

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 4329, 31 August 1937, Page 2

STRANGE ACCIDENTS

QUEER HAPPENINGS IN THE BUSH TALES OF AUSTRALIA Death and disaster lurk in strange places in the bush, as men, women, and even children have found to their sorrow, says a writer m tne Adelaide ‘ Chronicle.’ The strangest accident i have ever known was one which ended in a young girl’s death. Just outside Nimmitabel (New South Wales), a young girl went looking tor a cow. There had been a heavy fall of snow, and the girl became lost. Search parties combed the surrounding country for days, but failed to find a trace of the girl. Years later her skeleton was found in a crevice in a big rock. Its position told the tale of an awful death. In jumping over the crevice she had slipped, fallen into the crevice, and became wedged there. An amusing accident occurred on the south coast of New South Wales recently. A rabbit trapper accidentally sat on a trap and was caught by the seat of his pants, a little flesh being held in the jaws of the trap also. He had to walk through the town to reach his home and get the trap taken off. Also, on the south coast a man was in danger of starving to death through being caught in monkey ropes and timber called “ wait-a-while.” He had fallen into a gully and could not get out fortunately his calls for help were heaid by a farmer. A bark stripper saved himself from a slow death in a novel manner, in climbing a tree his feet slipped and he fell head first towards the ground. In falling, however, one foot caught in the fork of a tree. He was unable to release his foot, and as his head was down he would soon have I fainted. Fortunately he still held ins tomahawk in his hand and was able to cut the tree down. He fell with the tree, and but for scratches and bruises was uninjured. ESCAPING THE BEES. Out shooting in the bush a young man stretched himself out in the shade of a tree and dropped off to sleep. When he awoke he found a swarm of bees settled on his chest. In trying to brush them off he was badly stung, and may have been stung to death had he not acted promptly. He jumped up and raced to a waterhole about 20yds away and dived in. It was about the only place where the bees could not follow. Another man was shot by his dog. He was resting on a rock with his rifle beside him when his clog jumped up and knocked the rifle over. It went off and the bullet lodged in the calf of the man’s leg. A selector once almost burnt himself to death through his own foolishness. He was burning off rubbish and set fire to dozens of heaps, and then found himself in the centre of blazing heaps. The fires had spread until he was completely surrounded. He had to race through the fire and then jump into the creek. He spent weeks in bed recovering from the burns. Loose gravel almost caused a man s death, lie was walking along the top of a cliff about 20 feet from the edge when he slipped and fell. The ground sloped away to the edge of the cliff, and he could not get a hold. He slid right to the edge of the cliff, and would have dropped off several hundred feet had he not managed to catch hold of a sapling that grew at the very edge. He had to hang to it until aid came. He was thrown a rope to assist him to climb back to safety. At Wyndham (N.S.W.) a youth diving in the Matagana creek managed to get Ids. hands fast in a ledge of rock under the water. He was unable to call for belli and unable to release his hands. Fortunately, there were others, who, becoming alarmed at his failure to reappear after his dive, dived to his rescue. He was in a bad way when brought to the bank, but recovered after treatment. QUICKSANDS. In many parts of Australia quicksands are a source of great danger to both man and beast. Quicksand looks just like any other sand until you get into it, and then no matter how you struggle you sink deeper and deeper until it will swallow you unless vou get assistance. Near Bombala "(N.S.W.) there was a patch of quicksand in which many have almost lost their lives. On one occasion the brother of the writer had to be rescued from this quicksand with a long pole. Not far away a horse and cart completely disappeared from view. A party of men were sitting round a camp fire waiting for the billy to boil one evening, when there was an explosion which scattered the fire in all directions and lifted the billy into the air. The heat of the fire had caused the rock on which the fire had been kindled to explode. Something similar once happened to a party of telegraph linesmen. In this instance it was a log that exploded. They set alight to an old dry log to dry their clothes after being out in the rain. Suddenly the log was blown to pieces, and though all the men suffered from shock, none was seriously injured. A powder tin discovered' later told that someone had hidden a tin of gunpowder in the hollow log. ~ x . Many strange accidents happen in the bush, and when one adds those accidents caused by lightning, floods, fires, snakes, and spiders, you will see that the bush in Australia is not quite as safe a place as one might at first imagine.