YOUTH DROWNED

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXIX, Issue 20095, 30 April 1935, Page 9

YOUTH DROWNED

CAPSIZE OF CANOE By Telegraph—Press Association DARGAVILLE, April 29. Cameron Cuthbert, aged 18, was drowned under tragic circumstances in the northern Wairoa River on Sunday morning. Cuthbert and another young man, L. Warmington, recently built a small canoe similar to many others in use on the river. The canoe was taken to the river for a trial spin. Warmington, an experienced waterman, made the first trip and declared that the canoe was satisfactory. Cuthbert, fully dressed, then made a trial. A high wind was blowing at the time, the tide was running out fast and the waves were very high. In endeavouring to evade one of these the canoe capsized and Cuthbert was thrown into the water. He hung on to the canoe for a while, but evidently decided to swim for it. He had proceeded a short distance when it was noticed that he was in trouble. Warmington immediately stripped, reached Cuthbert and succeeded in bringing him within a couple of hundred yards of the shore, but Cuthbert struggled, broke free and sank. Warmington dived for the body, but was unsuccessful and had to make for the shore himself, where he landed in an exhausted condition. Parties under police direction were organised and a search was made with a boat and launches till late at night and early this morning, but no trace of the body was found. The fatality makes the fifth of the kind in the district during the last four weeks, all on a Sunday.