SAD BOATING ACCIDENT.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 14699, 6 December 1909, Page 2 (Supplement)

SAD BOATING ACCIDENT.

FIVE LIVES LOST. ONLY ONE SURVIVOR. CHRISTCHURCH, November 24. News ot a melancholy boating fatality at the mouth of the Rakaia River was received in Christohurch shortly beforo 12 o'clock last night. It appears that a party consisting of Mrs Jessie Baxter, wife of a well-known Southbridge fanner, Miss Jennio Hannah, Thomas Hannah (whose parents reside at Little Rakaia), Miss Lizzie Hampton (Southbridge) Miss A. Rountree (of Marshi land, near this city), and James Baxter, \ son of Mrs Baxter, were out boating on ; a lagoon near the month of the Rakaia ■ about 5 o'clock last evening. The boat ■ appears to have been caught by a very ! treacherous current which sweeps out 1 thro.igh the mouth of the river at a tremendous rate into the open sea. Tliere ■ was also a heavy surf running at tho i time. The boat, which was very heavily i loaded, having only about time inches of freeboard, immediately became unmana"e 3 able on lieing seized by the current, and was rapidly carried out seawards. Youn« 5 Baxter, who is a cripple, attempted to t pull the boat into the bank of an island l as they were being carried past it and jumped overboard to do so. Hannah tried r to pass the painter to him, but did not e succeed. Being crippled by paralysis, i young Baxter could not hold the boat e into the bank, and after the boat slipped a from his grasp he had great difficulty s in reaching the shore. He had displayed a great coolness and seized the only chance e there was of preventing the tragedy. Immediately afterwards two of the ladies were precipitated into the water \ by the boat lurching, and the act of their clutching the frail craft caused it- to overturn, and the five occupants were thus 0 thrown into the waves.

The distressing trageclv was witnessed by two rabbiters who were oil the shore, but owing to the unforti.ii.itc people hav ing been carried out so far to sea the eye-witnesses were unable to lender any assistance towards saving life..