Oamaru Boy Dies In Fall On Beach

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30960, 17 January 1966, Page 1

Oamaru Boy Dies In Fall On Beach

(New Zealand Press Association* WELLINGTON, January 16. The bodies of a boy and a woman were found on Wellington beaches today.

The boy fell to his death at Palmer head, Seatoun, this afternoon when rocks he was climbing gave way under him.

He was: Michael Phillip Elstone, aged 11, of Oamaru.

He was staying in Wellington with his mother and four brothers for the holidays. His brothers, Christopher, aged eight. Grant, aged five, and Shane, aged four, went looking for crabs. Their aunt and uncle, Mr and Mrs Alexander Wallace, of Balfour street, Momington. told the police the boys had been told not to climb rocks. Michael disappeared when the children began playing hide-and-seek. Mr Wallace searched for him and climbed to a gun emplacement on the top of the rock.

He saw the boy’s crumpled body 30 feet below. The boy was dead. A man found the woman on Eastbourne beach early this morning. She was:

Mrs Doris Henderson, aged 65, a widow, of Eastbourne.

Mrs Henderson failed to return home after going for a walk on Saturday night. She had been ill for some time. Island Bay Surf Club members rescued three boys

He was admitted to Wellington Hospital with severe cuts. The police launch Lady Elizabeth had to assist sixpeople in different boating mishaps today.

stranded in a boat which was being blown against rocks by a blustery northerly. The surf-boat crew pulled the boat into a lagoon near the island and took the boys off the boat.

Bathers at Oriental Bay rushed from the water when they thought a man had been attacked by a shark. The man was carried to shore through hundreds of swimmers with a badly mutilated leg. But the man, David Jones, an engineer on an overseas vessel, gashed his leg when he was struck by a boat’s propeller.

Police also ordered four small craft back to shore because of dangerous choppy conditions and the Lady Elizabeth stood by while three youths righted their overturned yacht. Three people were brought back in the Lady Elizabeth when it became too rough to try to return from Somes Island in their own boats. The launch also was called to help a 14ft runabout drifting with engine trouble. It was taken in tow by another vessel.