ADRIFT ON A RAFT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20259, 20 May 1929, Page 13

ADRIFT ON A RAFT.

EXCITING ADVENTURE.

TWO MEN CUT OFF BY FLOOD.

RESCUE BY MEANS OF BOAT. An exciting adventure befell two men employed at work on a shingle-crushing plant in Hawke's Bay in the course of last week's floods, between the two Pakowhai bridges. The men were quartered in a whare alongside the plant on which they were working, and, by a piece of good fortune that may have meant the difference between life and death, were connected by telephone with Hastings. Though they saw the flood rising early in the morning they were nob at first greatly alarmed, but at eight o'clock they rang Mr. J. iW. C. Monk, one of the directors of the company by whom they were employed, to say that they expected soon to be in difficulties. Mr. Monk at once drove to the scene and attempted a rescue by car, but the water was by that time too deep to enable him to cross the first bridge. He then went to Clive, where he was able to get a boat and a motor-lorry. The boat was hurried to the locality and three men managed it in the swirling waters while it was towed by a horse through tfao flood. By this time the two marooned men, one of whom was an old sailor, had made themselves a raft and were attempting to paddla it across the more placid part of the flood to a place of safety. The horse towing the boat had finally to be set free and the three men went on alone. After great difficulty the rescue party attained its object and the two men were driven back to Hastings—soaked to the skin, but jubilant. The rescue, however, took longer to effect than to relate, for it was one o'clock before it was finished.