MISSING CHILD FOUND

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 88, Issue 7, 10 January 1944, Page 4

MISSING CHILD FOUND

AFTER IN OPEK UNHARMED BY EXPOSURE (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 8 years, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. C. E. Trott, of Hawera, was found at 3 p.m. on WaJhi Beach, four miles south of Ohawe Beach, Hawera, where she was last seen at 2 p.m. on Wednesday. She was found by Messrs. J. Garvey and D. Cameron, one of whom recognised the child after she had asked io 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 cos. tume was torn and parts of her oodj scratched, but Dr. A. M. Young said that in view oi 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 9) and Mervyn Gates (9) near a recent fail 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 ft Ohawe Beach proper but the girl refused to do so. Tne 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 was nol in the sea she had been buried in one of the slips recently fallen Jrom the cliff. Her explanation 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.