FOUR LIVES SAVED

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 73, 27 March 1941, Page 5

FOUR LIVES SAVED

TRIBUTE TO AIRMAN

CAR SUBMERGED IN RIVER

(By Telegraph—Press Association.)

CHRISTCHURCH, March 26.

"I should like to pay a very sincere tribute to the services and assistance given in this tragedy by Flight Lieutenant Gee. He was of immediate assistance to Constable Hart, and but for his endeavours it seems certain that four more young persons would have lost their lives," said Sergeant J. C. Hay, at an inquest into the deaths of Gerald Livingstone Hewitt, aircraftman, Harewood. aged 24; Shirley Stewart Magee, widow, of 19 Macmillan Avenue, aged 21; and Isabel Martin, single, of Mansfield. Avenue, aged 20. Their bodies were recovered from a motor-car which plunged into the River Avon near the Fendalton Road Bridge and Harper Avenue early on Sunday, March 9.

The Coroner, Mr. E. C. Levvey, returned a verdict that the three deceased met their deaths through asphyxiation caused when the car in which they were travelling left the road in Harper Avenue and plunged into and was overturned in the Avon River.

In delivering his verdict, Mr. Levvey also commended the gallant action of Flight Lieutenant Gee, to whom he said the four survivors owed their lives. Constable G. H. Hart'was to be commended for the promptness with which he had reached the scene of the accident and called assistance in the work of rescue.

Evidence showed that Constable Hart was about 500 yards away when he heard the crash. He cycled to the spot, found the car upside down in the river,, then summoned Flight Lieutenant V. G. H. Gee, who was in a car in Harper Avenue. Gee went into the water and succeeded in opening a rear door of the car. He pulled four persons from the rear compartment and was then informed that three others were in the front seat. He went bacil and found Hewitt's body, but coffld not locate the bodies of the other two victims. By that time he was exhausted by the cold, and police and others, using a break-down truck, carried on' the search, which resulted in the finding of the other two bodies, one about three feet downstream from the car and the other about 30 yards downstream.