YOUTH LOST ON WANGAMOA

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXX, 25 May 1936, Page 4

YOUTH LOST ON WANGAMOA

A NIGHT SPENT IN THE OPEN Becoming lost while shooting on the Wangamoa Hills on Saturday afternoon, a Neison youth named Percy Alfred Hancock, spent Saturday night and part of Sunday in the bush. He was found by a search party on Sunday afternoon and was none the worse for his experience. The youth left his home, 78 Tasman street, at about 2 o’clock on Saturday afternoon, to cycle to the Wangamoa Hill. He took his rifle with him. As he did not return in the evening his parents became alarmed and made up a party to commence a search. They found the cycle half way up the hill. That party left at daybreak to make a further search, arranging to inform the police by 9 a.m. if the youth was not located. At 9.30 a.m. the police were informed that he had not been found, and so a search party was made up, about 30 leaving the Fire Brigade station at 10 a.m. Hancock was found on a hill overlooking Maori Pa at 2.22 p.m., little the worse for his experience. The search party was in charge of Constables A. J. Austin and A. C. J. Rush. Commenting on the matter to-day Senior-Sergt. C. Petersen referred to the folly of inexperienced youths going out shooting on their own in country they did not know, and causing needless alarm to the relatives and the community generallly.