HARBOUR COLLISION

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23574, 7 February 1940, Page 14

HARBOUR COLLISION

SIX PEOPLE }N WATER WOMEN'S LUCKY ESCAPE [VitOM OUJt OWN COR RKSPOX DEXT] SYDNEY, Jan. 21 Four women and two men jumped overboard from :i spiall launch at Cremorno wharf when a collision I lot wet; n it and a ferry was inevitable. One woman Avas unconscious wlien rescued. Two of the wopien were drawn under the ferrv-boat, one emerging half-drowned on the other sidp. The women and three men were on board the 28ft. half-cabin motor launch Lorna, which, was drawing away from the side qf the wharf when t'lie CrPmorne ferryboat, Lady Denman, was approaching. One of the men, Mr. James Waddell, .•jaw that a collision was imminent. "Look out!" he shouted. "All overbojinl!" The women and two men leaped into the water, ult||pugh onp of the .women could pot swim. Caught in the powerful suction of the larger vessel, the engines of which were reversed, the sis people floundered helplessly in the water.-. One woman was found clinging to a chain hanging in the water, Jipd the ferry went slowly ahead so that she woiild pot he crushed. One of the wqmcn, Sipiqps, sqjd later that she rppipipherpfl going "down and down." Tjiere was terrific suction, and she could not tell how long she was helow the surface. Someone helped her to the wharf.

(Sergeant J. Morrison, a signaller in the A.1.F., was sitting at the stern of the ferry when he saw the struggling figures in the churning water. Ho immediately dived to the rescue and saved two of the women. Mrs. Wells, manageress of the bookstall on tho wharf, rushed to the edge with a boathook and assisted a woman clinging to tho wharf.