SIX HOURS IN HEAVY RAIN

Dominion, Volume 15, Issue 26, 25 October 1921, Page 6

SIX HOURS IN HEAVY RAIN

HOSPITAL PATIENT’S EXPERIENCE By Telegraph—Special Correspondent. Masterton, October 24. Clothed only in her nightdress and a pair of- slippers, one of the inmates of the public hospital left her bed about 4 o’clock this morning and wandered out into the. cold southerly ram. lhe police were communicated with, and at 5 am. Constable Smith commenced a search of the neighbourhood, as it was feared that the patient might have thrown herself into the river. Special attention was paid to the river banks, but without result. ' , , Later on some of tho woman s relations came un from Carterton and formed a search party under the 1 of Constables Phillips and ° Neill, lhe upper and lower reaches of the Waipoua River and neighbouring paddocks weie thoroughly gone over, but the woman could not be found. About 10 o’clock, just as the party were preparing to move further afield, tho pettent presented herself at the hospital, wet, cold, and almost speechless but otherwise apparently none the woise for her adventure. She had been out in tho heavy rain and southerly wind for six hcurs, and, it appears, had wandered no further from the hospital than some neX rushes, in which she had sat down. It is assumed that she saw the people looking for her, and so returned to the institution.