RESCUE IN MID-OCEAN.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2175, 3 September 1907, Page 3

RESCUE IN MID-OCEAN.

FOURTEEN DAI'S IN AN OPEN BOAT. Arriving at New York on June 12, the Cunard linor Carmania brought a thrilling story of rescuo in mid AtlanKarly one morning, when 150 miles oil' the hanks of Newfoundland, and the sea very rough, tlio look-out spied a ship’s dory (small boat), from the bow of which buttered a strip of white. At the expense of delaying his passongers and mails Captain AYier turned asido from his course and boro down towards tho tiny craft. On arriving alongside they found the dory tossing liko a cork in tlio tormented water, and at the bottom was strotchod tlio apparently lifeless body of a man. To have launched a boat from the Carmania’s davits would have been a risky proceeding, so the captain called for volunteers to swim with a life

lino to the rescuo. A dozen men immediately responded, and to John Breen, a member of the orew, was entrusted the task. After a hard tussle Breen beached tho boat, climbed aboard, and found a. living but unconscious man, as thin as a skeleton. Breen rowed tho little dory alongside tho huge liner, and both men were soon hoisted aboard, amid cheers from a thousand people who had assembled on tho Carmania’s decks. A little later tho rescued man, recovered sufficiently to tell his pitiable story. His name is Louis Vollet, one of tho crew of a French fishing schooner the Alimosa, from the port of St. Alalo, France. Fourteen days ago Vollet and another member of tlio crew left tho vessel in a dory to take in night-lines. CHEWED ROPES AND BOOTS. While they were thus engaged a terrible storm arose; tho snow and sleet almost blinded them, and a big wave washed both men out pf the boat. Vollet managed to scramble back, and for fourteen days and nights ho drifted at tho mercy of the open Atlantic, enduring perpetual torture, his limbs frost-bitten,_ and his face swollen beyond recognition. A few biscuits and some rain water scooped from the bottom of tho dory were his solo nourishment. On the fifth day he ate his last crumb, and after that ho chewed rope and his boots.

Vollet says ho felt himself going mad by degrees. Ho kept count of the days, which seemed insufferably long, and the nights, that were longer still, by making notches on a stick. He lived only to sight a ship, and when the Carmania bore down upon him ho fainted with joy and exhaustion. The white strip which the look-out men saw was a portion of the shirt which Vollet tore from his body to wave. The passengers were intensely moved by tho fisherman’s story, and subscribed £2O for him. AVithin four hours of the man’s rescue. the “Cunard Daily Bulletin” contained a full account of the incident, written by tho purser. Taken to New York hospital in a state of extreme exhaustion, Vollet’s chances of recovery are slender.