SREEM MEADOWS TRAGEDY

Taranaki Daily News, 22 January 1927, Page 15

SREEM MEADOWS TRAGEDY

SAD DOUBLE DROWNING BRAVE ATTEMPTS AT RESCUE. THE CORONER’S COMMENDATION. An inquest into the death of Mary Doreen Hammond, who with Thomas Pennington was drowned on Thursday at Greenmeadows beach, Opunake, was held yesterday before Mr. Arthur O Brien, J.P., acting coroner. A verdict was delivered that deceased met her death through accidental drowning. The Coroner recommended that a life-line should be provided at the beach. The action of the Opunake Surf Club's team, Messrs. G. and J. Harrison, W. E. and M. Smith, R. Brighouse, P. Brooker and Johnson, in trying conditions was highly commended by the Coroner. The movements of the bathers prior to the tragedy were observed from the cliff by Mr. Campbell Jackson, who is camped in the locality. He procured the assistance of Mr. F. Julian, who lives 400 yards from the beach. The two men carried ropes with them, but no trace could then ‘be found of the pair. The surf was searched, Mr. Julian being roped and Mr. Jackson assisting him from the shore. In the meantime Mrs. Julian communicated by telephone with Opunake, four miles away, and Dr. J. S. Church arrived with members of the Opunake Life Saving Club in about 15 minutes. The team had been practising on the Opunake beach when the distress call was received from the power house. They threw the reel on a motor and were driven by Mr. F. Loesch at 40 miles an hour to the scene, some of the party changing into their surf costumes during the journey. Upon arrival the club sent out Messrs. G. Harrison, C. Falkner, R. Brighouse and P. Brooker, four of its best swimmers, into the surf. Within ten minutes Mr. Brooker encountered the body of Miss Hammond in the surf and it was brought ashore. Dr. Church and the life-savers proceeded immediately to apply artificial respiration. Their efforts were continued for fifty minutes, by which time it was evident that life was extinct. The people from the neighbouring shack supplied hot water and blankets to assist.

Meanwhile, the other three swimmers, who had remained in the water, were seen to be unable to make their way back. Mr. J. Harrison then went out with the line again, and reached his brother after a long struggle through the surf, and was towed with him back to the shore. G. Harrison had been carried much further out than Brooker and Brighouse, who had the good luck encounter the line as the Harrisons were being towed in. G. Harrison, who had been carried out beyond the breakers, was not in so exhausted a condition as Brooker and Brighouse, who required some time to recover from the pounding they had received from waves breaking from a height of ten feet. The members had been some half an hour in the boiling surf. When Brooker recovered the girl’s body, W. Smith, the club’s belt man, came out with the line and took the body ashore. Three of the “supports” were unable to go back on the line, because it would have broken under the strain. When W. Smith reached the others in the surf a conference was held among the supports and the belt man as to who was to go back with the line, it being capable of taking only one of the supports. Falkner, being the youngest, was sent back. Those remaining knew then that they could not get back without the help of the line. The beach was patrolled all night by settlers and shaek-holders -without the body of Mr. Pennington being found. Relatives of the deceased persons arrived from Cape Egmont and Mangatoki during the hours of darkness and remained on the beach until daybreak.