PLUNGE OVER TALL CLIFF

Taranaki Daily News, 11 May 1933, Page 7

PLUNGE OVER TALL CLIFF

SHEPHERD’S HARROW ESCAPE

ACCIDENT WHILE MUSTERING.

STRETCHER BEARERS’ LONG TREK.

Sy Telegraph-Press Association. Blenheim, Last Night

While mustering on the high country on the Leatham run Mr; Alexander A. Ward, a son of Mr. G. J. Ward, of Blenheim, met with a sensational accident falling headlong over a precipitous cliff and being saved from death in the rocky creek bed a thousand feet below only by the fact that his downward progress was arrested by a tough shrub. He was badly knocked about, and is now an inmate of the Stafford Hospital. The full extent of his injuries has not yet been determined, but it not anticipated that there will be any serious complications. So far he is being treated for broken ribs, a badly sprained ankle, head injuries, and numerous cuts and abrasions* in addition to which he is bruised all over.

Mr. Ward, with a party, had been mustering above the snow line in the steep and precipitous back country of the run, and found himself ahead of his section when he reached the lip of an abyss, some 1290 feet in depth, at the bottom of which flows Boulder Creek. While waiting for the others, he placed his staff against a rock near the edge of the cliff and leaned against it Either the rock gave way, or the staff slipped, and the unfortunate man was precipitated headlong. He fell a sheer 60 feet in one drop, and was then caught in a shingle .. slide which carried him, unconscious, a further 60 or 70 feet, but fortunately ha brought up against a stout tawhine bush, which arrested his progress on* the extreme edge of a further sheer drop of 120 feet followed by a steep descent of a thousand feet to the creek bed. One of the other musterers saw Mr. Ward fall and summoned the whole party, but it was impossible to reach him from above, and they had to descend to the creek bed and fight their way up to where Mr. Ward lay in his precarious position. He was hauled to a safer place, and then began a nightmare march to bring him out. The descent to the creek-bed, lowering an improvised stretcher from one man. to another, occupied two and a half hours, after which the stretcher-bearers—Messrs. John Jackson, Walter Jackson, Joseph Reynolds and W. Lane—were faced with a seven-mile trek down the rocky gorge, often up to their middles in the icy snowwater. They had to cross and re-cross the creek over 30 times, and it was carrying a fair volume of water. In addition, many steep spurs had to be negotiated. The men became so cold that their hands lost all sense of feeling. Nearing the homestead Mr. J. Crow came put and rendered welcome assistance, but the journey down the creek occupied over five hours and the party were thoroughly exhausted. Mr. Ward was brought into Blenheim in a motor-truck, arriving in hospital at 10 o’clock—just 12 hours after the accident In addition , to the splendid work of the rescue party, Mr. Paul Reynolds put up something in the nature of a record when Mr. Ward’s plight was first discovered. The party had no materials with which to construct a stretcher, and Mr. Reynolds set out across the steep country for the camp six miles distant. Here he procured sacks and blankets and he wm back at the scene of the accident in under .two hours. . —