LOST ON BEACH

Timaru Herald, Volume CLV, Issue 22786, 10 January 1944, Page 4

LOST ON BEACH

Missing Child Found THREE NIGHTS IN THE OPEN (N.Z.P.A.) NEW PLYMOUTH, Jan. 9. After being four days and three nights in the open, clad only in a bathing costume. Colleen Trott, aged eight years, daughter of Mr and Mrs C. E. Trott. Hawera. was found at 3 p.m. to-day on the Waihl Beach four miles south of Ohawe Beach, Hawera, where she was last seen at 2 p.m. on Wednesday. The finders were Messrs J. Garvey and D. Cameron, one of whom recognised the child after she had asked to be directed to the bathing shed. She had had no food, and said she had had no water. She was severely sunburned and blistered. Her bathing costume was torn and parts of her body scratched, but Dr. A. M. Young said in view of the exposure and absence of food she was in remarkably good condition. When she disappeared at Ohawe, Colleen was playing with her brother Colin, aged nine years, and Mervyn Gates, aged nine years, near a recent fall of earth below the cliffs about 200 yards from the entrance of the beach in the direction of Schnapper Bay. The boys, it was stated, decided to return to their mothers at Ohawe Beach proper, but the girl refused to do so. The boys were questioned concerning the whereabouts of Colleen and were sent back to get her. They returned with the news that she was nowhere to be seen. It was feared that if the girl were not in the sea she had been buried in one of the slips recently fallen from the cliff. Her explanation yesterday Was that she had fallen asleep when her brother left her. and had become lost. In the meantime the whole coast area had been searched.