FALL DOWN CLIFF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20362, 17 September 1929, Page 11

FALL DOWN CLIFF.

BOY'S AWFUL PLIGHT.

ALL NIGHT ON THE ROCKS.

A search for Oliver Baker, a 12-year-old schoolboy, led to an amazing discovery iu Sydney a few days ago. The boy, terribly injured, was found lying helplessly on the jagged, spray-soaked rocks at the bottom of a precipice between Coogee and Maroubra. He had • been there since the previous day.

Oliver Baker, who resides at Coogee, went out to play with some boys about his own ago shortly after lunch, They visited the cliffs near Coogee, and were playing near the verge when Baker was suddenly missed. His companions, believing that he had returned home, took no notice of his disappearance. When ho did not return his mother, aft«*r making inquiries herself in an effort to find him, reported his disappearance to the police. Two constables inquired from the boy's companions where ho had last been seen, and then visited the cliffs. They climbed down almost to the base, and then clambered round the bouldera. One of tho

constables was making a search of a funnel-shaped iissure running inland from the sea, when he discovered the boy lying close to a spray-corroded rock, to the shelter of which apparently he had crawled He must have suffered terrible agonies throughout the night Tho lad was not sheltered from tho wind, and, although the rock protected him from most of the spray, every big breaker must have burst in a shower of icy drops over him. This aggravated his condition, and when he was found ho was almost blue with cold, and was in a semiconscious condition. When the constablo asked him how he felt he could do no more than mutter a few incoherent words. One of tho constables carefully lifted the boy in his arms, and with the aid of tho other policeman, carried him round the rocks to where a rough path made it easier to regain .the cliff-top. The boy wa3 found to be suffering from fractures' of" the skull and right leg. His face was also injured and he was suffering greatly from exposure. He was taken to a hospital.