PRODIGIOUS STRENGTH

Taranaki Daily News, 13 May 1930, Page 11

PRODIGIOUS STRENGTH

MAORI’S REMARKABLE FEAT

TRACTOR LIFTED OFF WORKMATE. RESCUE FROM CERTAIN. DEATH. (By Wire —Special to News.) Auckland, Last Night. A prodigious feat of strength by a Maori was responsible for preventing his injured workmate from being crushed to death. Victor Williams, a tractor driver for the Hauraki Plains County Council, was driving a grader the other day with Te Ratana a t ? his mate. The tractor went too near the edge of the drains and capsized into it, pinning Williams underneath, giving him a compound fracture of the leg. . As. .Williams . lay crushed beneath the; weight of .the tractor, Te Ratana sprang to help him, realising that the •-weight of the tractor w.as slowly crushing him.to death and that no,help was handy. Te Ratana put his back up against the: side of the tractor, got. oiu hand .underneath it, and actually lifted it .clear of the ground while he pushed a block of wood underneath it He dragged Williams out and then sent for help. Williams, who tells the story, is. recovering in the Thames hospital, and declares that but for the enormous strength shown by Te Ratana he.would have "been slowly crushed to death. He says tha + on numerous occasions Te Ratana has lifted an ordinary touring car while a chock was put underneath and a tyre changed. . The tractor, according to the county engineer, weighs about seven tons. Although Te Ratana did not lift- all that weight, the feat was. a remarkable one.