THE HERO OF THE METROPOLIS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume V, Issue 260, 26 April 1878, Page 15

THE HERO OF THE METROPOLIS.

Timothy O'Brien may well be called the " Hero of the Metropolis. By his own unaided exertions he rescued from the breakers and surf nearly fifty persons. Timothy is a native of the County Limerick, Ireland ; is about thirty-four years of age, five feet six inches high, very stout built, a Hercules in strength, and of the greatest physical endurance. This is the second -wreck from which he has escaped with his life, the first being that of the steamer Golden Gate, which was lost off Acapulco, on the Pacific coast, in 1863. She was burned to the water's edge, and O'Brien was one of the twenty-five persons who swam ashore, a distance of seven miles. Soon after the Metropolis struck and began to break up, there was a general rush for the rigging. O'Brien secured a position high on the mainmast, but when it became apparent that the only chance for life was to swim ashore, he boldly jumped from the rigging over the heads of the others and struck out for the beach, which he reached safely, the fifth man from the wreck. Realizing the peril of his f ellow-passengers, O'Brien hastened over to the Currituck Club House, three-quarters of a mile distant, where he procured a pair of overalls and a quantity of dry matches. He returned, built several fires, after which began the work which marks him a hero. The sea was full of the struggling victims buffeting with the breakers, and, one by one he brought the nearly-exhausted and, in some instances, half-dead victims ashore, and placed them in the hands of others at the fires. He never halted until five o'clock in the evening when the last survivor had reached the shore. In the seven hours during which he was thus engaged O'Brien had saved nearly fifty people, many of whom would have perished but for his great coolness and his manly aid. — Exchange.