"REMARKABLE FEAT

Manawatu Standard, Volume L, Issue 140, 13 May 1930, Page 6

"REMARKABLE FEAT

MAORI’S GREAT STRENGTH, SAVED WORKMATE’S LIFE. > (By Telegraph.—Special to Standard.) AUCKLAND May 13. A prodigious feat of strength by * Maori was responsible for preventing iiis injured workmate from being crushed to death. . , Victor Williams, a tractor driver tor the Hauraki Plains County Council, was driving a grader the other day with A® Ratana as liis mate. The tractor went too near the edge of one of the draitw and capsized into it, pinning Mr Williams underneath and giving imn a compound fracture of the leg. As he lay crushed beneath the weight of the tractor Te Ratana sprang to help him. Realising that the weight of the tractor was slowly criishing Air Williams to death and that no help was handy, ie Ratana put his back up against the side of the tractor, got one hand underneath it and actually lifted it clear of the ground, while he pushed a block <>i wood beneath it. He dragged Mr Williams out and then went for help. Mr Williams, who tells the story, is recovering in the Thames Hospital and, declares that but for the enormous strength shown by Te Ratana lie would have been slowly crushed to death. Ho says that on numerous occasions le Katana has lifted up an ordinary touring car while a chock was put underneath and the tyre changed. The tractor, according to the county engineer, weighs about seven tons. Although Te Ratana did not lift all that weight, the feat was a remarkable ons.