PROLONGED EFFORT TO SAVE LIFE

Dominion, Volume 35, Issue 263, 5 August 1942, Page 8

PROLONGED EFFORT TO SAVE LIFE

Man’s Fall From Ship

(By Telegraph—Press Association.) AUCKLAND, August 4.

Long-sustained efforts at resuscitation, and artificial respiration failed to save the life of William Gilray, fireman, aged 57, married, of Wade's Bond, St. Martins, Christchurch, who fell from his vessel at the King’s Wharf shortly before U o'clock last niglit. Four St. John Ambulance officers, Dr. Hill McDougall, and Dr. L. P. Simmons, and workers on the wharf,- worked continuously for about three hours while Gilray lay on the deck of the vessel. Hearing a crash on the deck above, Janies Gilder, storekeeper on the vessel, and president of the Lyttelton Harbour Board Employees’ Union, rushed up from below. He saw Gilray’s head in the dark water under the wharf, and dived into the water. Gilder gripped a stringer and held Gilray up with his legs till assistance came. Gilray was hauled up on to the deck. The barnacles lon the stringer severely lacerated and bruised Gilder’s arm.s. Gilray was in the water only a few minutes.

Four carbon dioxide gas cylinders and a cylinder of oxygen were used by the ambulance officers, who propped Gilray up on hot water bottles. Shortly before 11 o’clock Gilray was taken to the Auckland Hospital,'and died there. An ambulance officer had remained on the stretcher to keep working during the trip to the hospital. Gilray was well known in yachting affairs at Lyttelton, and bad acted as timekeeper in the Sanders Cup races.