CONSTABLE DROWNED

Wairarapa Daily Times, 1 May 1937, Page 5

CONSTABLE DROWNED

BOAT CAPSIZES. AUCKLAND, Friday. A police constable stationed at Port Chalmers who was spending his leave at Mercer was drowned this afternoon when a boat in which he and a companion were proceeding to a duck shooting stand on the Whangamarino Stream capsized. The victim was Constable Gordon George Medhurst, a married man aged 29, whose wife is spending a holiday at Ohakune. In company with Mr. Alfred Parrish, of Northeote, Constable Medhurst set off in a small duck boat from Mercer with the intention of visiting a shooting location which was situated on the stream, about three miles from its mouth. Before the stand was reached, however, the boat overturned, the occupants being flung into the water. Mr. Parrish struck out for the bank, which he reached, after an arduous swim, in an exhausted condition, but Constable Medhurst almost immediately disappeared. When equipment had been obtained from Pukekohe, dragging operations were commenced by the police to-night and Constable Medhurst’s body was recovered at nine o’clock, near the scene of the capsize. Constable Medhurst, who was the youngest son of Mr. and Mrs T. Medhurst, of Bombay, was born in Cambridge, and joined the Police Force seven years ago. At the time of the fatality he was spending a holiday with liis brother, Mr. S. Medhurst,- of Mercer. His wife was to' have joined him after a visit to Ohakune. —‘(P.A.)