WOMAN, 73, GIVES LIFE FOR CHILD.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18046, 5 January 1927, Page 3

WOMAN, 73, GIVES LIFE FOR CHILD.

(Special to the “Star.”) LONDON, October 2(5. An elderly lady sacrificed her life for that of a child in the ornamental lake in Abington Park, Northampton, this morning. The child, a fair-haired girl of two years and nine months, Joyce Page, was pushing her doll's perambulator along the gravel path when, it is believed, the perambulator overturned into the lake and the child fell in with it. Miss Mary Asher, aged seventy-three, who lived with the child’s parents in Allen Road, Northampton, plunged in after the child, which she secured and grasped tightly to her breast, but she then overbalanced. Mrs Anthony Bird sail, who was some distance away, saw Miss Asher waving her hand by the lakeside, but her view of the lake was obstructed by a bank, and she thought that the woman was throwing food to the swans. Arriving by the lakeside. Mrs Birdsail saw Miss Asher lying doubled up, face downwards, in shallow water. She promptly drew Miss Asher to the bank, and then found the child tightly clasped in Miss Asher’s arms. She tore the child away, and others who had been attracted to the spot applied artificial respiration. The child quickly recovered, but though park-keepers and police worked on Miss Asher for an hour they failed to revive her.