Remaining Tunnel Patient Recovers

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30469, 17 June 1964, Page 9

Remaining Tunnel Patient Recovers

<Neu> Zealand Pres* Association) WELLINGTON, June 16. The condition of 13-year-old Peter Ryan, the only remaining hospital case from Sunday’s tunnel disaster, was reported at noon to be satisfactory.

The funeral service for Mr S. E. Barlow, the ambulance officer who died in a rescue attempt, will be at St Peters Church, Willis street, tomorrow afternoon.

A New Zealand Ensign will drape the coffin and Mr Barlow’s officer’s cap will be placed on top. Fellow ambulance officers will be pallbearers. The funerals of the two boys, Wayne Niven and Lance Voss, will also be tomorrow, at the Ngaio Anglican Church and the Khandallah Presbyterian Church, respectively. Reports being prepared on the tunnel incident indicate that Mr Barlow continued to operate his resuscitator on a boy he thought dead while he himself was falling into unconsciousness through lack of oxygen.

The Chief Fire Officer, Mr W, J. Henderson, confirmed that reference was being made to this in one of his officer’s reports. “I understand Mr Barlow told one of my officers he thought the boy had ‘gone’ but said he would continue resuscitation while my man left to assist another man. “Both Mr Barlow and my

man were suffering from lack of air but Mr Barlow continued to give the oxygen to the boy,” Mr Henderson said. The superintendent of the Wellington Free Ambulance (Major G. Stanley) described Mr Barlow’s act as in the “highest tradition of the service.”

“He served this organisation for 21 years and died doing his duty,” he said.

The service has received many calls of sympathy from throughout the North Island. Broadcast tributes were paid to the dead officer by the chairman of the Wellington Free Ambulance Board, Sir Charles Norwood, and the Mayor of Wellington (Mr F. J. Kitts).