THOUGHT MOTHER DEAD

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23718, 27 January 1939, Page 5

THOUGHT MOTHER DEAD

SON ARRANGED FUNERAL HEAT VICTIM HAD ONLY FAINTED (From Our Own Correspondent) SYDNEY, Jan. 20. When Mary Ann Shepherd, aged 70, collapsed in a Sydney street during the heat-wave, her son, a conductor on a tram which was passing at the time, stopped to see why the crowd had gathered. He saw his mother on the footpath and was told she was dead. Leaving her in the hands of ambulance officers, he left for his depot and was given three days off duty. He was making arrangements for the funeral which he learned that his mother was alive. She had been 1 vived by ambulance men, using a carbon dioxide pocket respirator and artificial respiration. “To my mine it was a miracle," said the son, Edward Shepherd. “I went away with the impression that my mother was dead/’ My deepest thanks go out to the ambulance men.

who apparently never accept death until they have done all in their power to revive a person.” ‘ / Mrs Shepherd was carried to the doorway of a shop when' she collapsed. At this time trams were returning to the Waverley depot, and her son was on one of them. “ Someone who knew me told, me that it was my mother that was dead.” Shepherd said. “I saw a doctor there, and spoke to him. Two tramway men, who hav« ambulance certificates, thought she was dead Practically everybody did. Trams were running' only second, apart, and as there wasnothing else I could - do, I. got .on my tram, so that the lines could ■ be cleared.” ■ “My mother is in a burial fund, and I got her papers, with a-view to arranging for the. funeral. Then I was told my mother had revived in the ambulance. Just 'before the ambulance reached the gates she, opened her eyes.” • . The sparklet pocket resuscitator, now standard equipment in Sydney ambulances, has successfully revived who have'shown all sighs of death through gas, electric shock, arid drowning. ' ■ ’