NIAGARA RESCUE.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVI, Issue 1191, 3 January 1914, Page 4

NIAGARA RESCUE.

CINEMA. ACTOR FIVE HOURS IN THE WHIRLPOOL. .Peter Laugaard, a movingpicture actor, was rescued late on the night of October 3rd, more dead than alive, from a small motor-boat in which he had been tossed helplessly hither and thither for nearly five hours, in the whirlpool at the foot of Niagara Falls. Laugaard made the trip through the rapids, as he has done before, successfully, but when he came out on the smooth but more treacherous waters of the whirlpool he found that the engine had stopped. As the boat was whirled round and round he tried in vain to start the engine, his every movement watched anxiously by crowds of people on the bauks, who were powerless to help him. After two hours tinkering with the engine, Laugaard gave up the attempt to set it going, and sat down to wait for what seemed certain death. Time after time the prow of the little boat was sucked down, until it seemed impossible to the watchers that she codld eight herself. When the daylight failed, searchlights were brought and tiained on the little boat out in whirlpool. Fiiemeu who had been summoned made unsuccessful attempts to send out a rope attached to a float, and then one of the firemen, Fred Preston, volunteered to tty to swim out with a life line tied to his body. His first attempt failed when the line became entangled. Nothing daunted he tried again, and managed to reach the boat. Laugaard by then was hall insensible with fright and exhaustion, and could give no aid to his rescuer, t The boat was half full of water, aud threatened to capsize when Preston attempted to clamber into it, so he clung hard to its side, aud shouted to those on shore to haul in the rope. Eveu theu rescuer aud rescued were more than ouce iu great peril; the lorce of the whirlpool, opposed to the rope, nearly overturned the boat on top of Preston, but at last they were drawn to the shore, where thousands of people cheered Preston, while Langaard waThurried to an hotel and put to bed.