BABY BURIED BY DEBRIS

Taranaki Daily News, 13 February 1931, Page 5

BABY BURIED BY DEBRIS

AUCKLANDERS IN NAPIER.

FAMILY’S EXPERIENCES.

The experiences of an Auckland woman, Mrs. L. Dickens, and her family are remarkably descriptive of thd, fortune which attended so many of. the people of Napier while death was rampant in the town. H - Bricks hurtling down aa the. chimney of her residence in Napier collapsed with the first shock missed Mrs. Dickens by barely a, second as she ran from the house, she informed a Star representative. Yet her anxiety was for her children, a boy of two years and a baby of twelve months, who were out .in the open in the care of a young sister ot Mrs. Dickens, Miss Joyce Nyberg, of Brown’s Bay. - . - The three were at Port Ahunri, the little boy walking at the side of the baby carriage, when the earthquake brought down on top of them the street verandah of a brick shop. Miss Nybergs and the boy were unconscious when they were found lying in the roadway.. The rescuers were informed of the baby’s plight, and three men worked for half an hour before they found a crushed perambulator beneath the debris. In the meantime, Miss Nyberg and the other child had been taken away for treat-i ment for bruises and abrasions, and a woman who was passing took, away the baby, who was shockingly bruised and not expected to survive. When Mr. Dickens reached the scena all she could find was the wrecked perambulator. “I felt completely, desolated among the hundreds of other sufferers,” she;said. “After a while a man told me a young girl and a little boy had been taken to hospital. Some-, how, I discovered them and a motorist took me to a point on the street—.wa. were too frightened, to go near building' or to our homes —-where others were camped.” - - Mr. Dickens had crashed fifteen feet from a ladder on Bluff Hill when the. shock came. In spite of his severe fall, he managed to find Mrs. Dickens, .Miss Nyberg and the little boy, but it. was not until evening that a young couple, said they had a seriously-injured baby at their home. ,rl ; “A doctor' examined the baby and said no bones were broken,” • said Mrs. Dickens. “A sleeping draught was provided and the child took a turn for the better at midnight. He is now doing wonderfully well.” v Mr. and Mrs. Dickens and their family reached Auckland by car. They met at Palmerston North by a relative who had travelled by car from Auckland immediately on hearing the of the disaster.