HOLIDAY TRAGEDIES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22778, 14 January 1936, Page 13

HOLIDAY TRAGEDIES

AT NEW SOUTH WALES RESORTS / SEVEN PERSONS DROWNED (Fkom Ouk Own Correspondent) SYDNEY, January 2. This Christmas-New Year period has been responsible for the usual quota of drownings of holiday-makers in and near Sydney, but seldom have these seasonal tragedies included two so poignant as those involving the deaths of two women and five young children. At Helensburgh, about 40 miles from Sydney, one .woman and her two youiig children were drowned in a colliery dam on Boxing Day; at Lake Illawarra, a few miles further south, a woman, her two young children, and a young niece were drowned on Monday when their small boat overturned.

The victims of the Helensburgh tragedy were Mrs Florence Angwin, aged about 32, of Day street, Leichhardt, a Sydney suburb; her sou, Francis Angwin, aged eight, and her daughter, Lola, aged seven. These three, with the woman’s sister-in-law, Mrs Muriel Angwin, and the latter’s four children, wont for a walk around the Helensburgh Metropolitan Colliery dam, about a quarter of a mile long and 50 yards wide. They came to a rock sloping towards the water’s edge. In crossing it, William Angwin, aged 12, sou of Mrs Muriel Angwin, slipped into the water, about nine feet deep. His mother, who qould not swim, jumped into the water to rescue him. Her sou, Edgar, aged nine, got a stick and helped his mother to the side of the dam, and her sister-in-law, also unable to swim, jumped into the water to help her. The' children, seeing their mother’s plight, were seized with panic, and all of them except two jumped into the water; Mrs F. Angwin got safely ashore, but, seeing her two children still in the water, dived in again. Edgar jumped in too. During these happenings, Alexander Blair, aged 21, and his brothers, Hugh, aged nine, and James, aged 13, had been swimming at the other end of the dam. They heard the cries of the women and children, but thought they were the voices of a party skylarking. As the cries persisted with even greater vehemence, Alexander Blair swam down the dam while his brothers walked along the bank. They arrived at the scene practically together, and saw only a little boy standing on the bank sobbing bitterly with the women and children struggling in the water and a dog swimming round them in circles. The Blair brothers rushed to the drowning women and children. They pluckily re-entered the water again and again, and saved three of the boys and Mrs Muriel Angwin. James Blair hurried oft' for medical assistance to the nearest doctor, three-quarters of a mile away, while his brothers continued to dive until they found the bodies of Mrs Florence Angwin and her two children at the bottom of the dam and brought them ashore. They vigorously applied artificial respiration methods. With seven patients, however, they concentrated on those who appeared to them to be in the worst condition. Mrs Murie] Angwin and her three children responded after half an hour’s treatment. Other heln arrived, but Mrs Florence Angwin and her two children were beyond aid. AN OVERTURNED BOAT. The victims of the Lake Illawarra tragedy were Mrs Lillian Knowles, 30, of Tempe; Jean Knowles (daughter), seven; George Knowles (son), six; and Norma Knowles (niece), nine. There were seven members of their picnic party. They embarked in a small boat only eight feet long, but were apparently lulled into a false sense of security by the fact that the waters of the lake were calm and shallow. Except where channels form from time to time, the whole body of the lake is comparatively shallow, and is a well-known resort for picnickers. With Mrs Knowles and the three children were a cousin, Clive Knowles, 22, and his sister, Myra. 15, and Ernest Hutchinson, six. All went well for nearly an hour, and the members of the party were enjoying the outing. Just as they approached Gooseberry Island, where it is thought they proposed to land for afternoon tea, one of the oars fell cut of the boat. One member of the party leaned over the edge of the boat in an effort to- recover the drifting oar, causing the boat to overturn, and all seven were thrown into the lake. The children became panic-stricken, and screamed loudly. The mother endeavoured to assist them, but they struggled wildly and in a few minutes Mrs Knowles and the three children had disappeared from view. Hearing screams about a mile from the shore two men secured a launch and set out for the scene of the tragedy. They first came upon a man who had divested himself of his clothing, and who was swimming desperately for the shore. Ho was Clive Knowles, and he was by this time exhausted. Knowles gasped out that there were others farther out, and he urged the men in the launch to keep going. Telling Knowles to direct hie energies to keeping afloat, and saying they would pick him up on the way back, the two men pressed on. When they reached the capsized boat, they found Myra Knowles hanging to its side and holding on to Jean Knowles and the boy Hutchinson, in an endeavour to keep their heads above water. Her efforts undoubtedly saved the life of the boy. The three persons were taken into the boat, but there. was no sign of the others. There was just a spark of life in Jean Knowles when she was brought ashore, but strenuous efforts to resuscitate her were unsuccessful. Mr Alfred Byrnes, of Port Kembla, had meanwhile come on the scene in a launch, and while he was cruising about the body of Norma Knowles floated to the surface. The other two bodies were recovered the next day.