HEROISM AT NIAGARA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 14932, 4 March 1912, Page 8

HEROISM AT NIAGARA.

HOW THREE PEOPLE MET DEATH.

[FROM OCR OWN* CORRESPONDENT.]

San Francisco, February 7. Onk' of those sensational happenings of which tho Niagara Falls has so often been the setting, was reported last Monday. Three persons were drowned by the breaking loose of a bridge of ice that spanned the river bolow tho falls.

Mr. and Mrs. Eldridgo Sfanton. of Toronto, Canada, and Bun ell Heacock, 17 years .ago, of Cleveland, Ohio, "wore tho victims. 8 Hundreds of people had ventured daily across tho ico bridge, but at the time of tho breakaway only half a dozen persons were upon it. Some of them sprang to safety before the island of ico got free in the swirling river. Stanton and his wife ran first ono way and then the other, and finally tho woman collapsed, and fell on her face, crying, " I can't, go on." Not only did her husband remain by her, but the lad Heacock ran back to help Stanton. That act. cost him his own life. Tho huge block of ico on which the three were imprisoned: swept down tho river, breasting tho terrible outrush of tho Niagara Falls Company's tunnel outflow. Below, on tho bridges spanning tho river, stood men with ropes, by means of which it was hoped tho trio might rescue themselves from their parlous position. Heacock grasped one rope, but tho sag lot him drop into the icy water, and he was fearfully battered by the ice floes. The men above drew him up, and ho tried to haul himself up hand over hand. But his strength had been sapped. His hands began to slip, and as ho was about 60 feet clear of the Avater his head fell back, and he lost his grip and plunged into the seething waters and was drowned. Stanton meanwhile had caught and lost a rope dangling from ono bridge. At tho next bridgo he grasped another lope, and, apparently with no thought of his own fate, sought to wind it round hh wife's body. But his hands were numb, ind tho rope fell from his grasp. He raised his wife to her feet, kissed her, and clasped hor in his arms. Tho woman sank to her knees. Stanton knelt bosido her, his arms clasped close about hor. In a little whilo tho ice was shattered, and tho gallant man and the woman at his sido,, disappeared from sight.