OVER THE GAP

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 86, 2 December 1931, Page 2

OVER THE GAP

BUT FOUND ALIVE MAN CRASHES 200 FEET • ON TO SHARP ROCKS. TERRIBLE INJURIES. SYDNEY, Saturday. For the third time in the long history of cliff tragedies at the Heads, a person crashed 200 feet over The Gap, and lived. Frightful agony was endured by to-day's victim, a man aged about 60 years; but he bore -his pain without a murmur while ambulance men, police and civilians hauled him to the top, after he had erawled 80 feet up Jacob's Ladder, a leg and an arm dragging helplcssly behind him. The man, who told Constable I, Hamilton, one of his rescuers, that his name was Ernest Propert, jeweller, is now in St. Vincent's Hospital, and frequently lapses into unconsciousness. Thc police are not certain that this is his name, however, for his mind wanders a great deal under the stress of his stifferings. ; His skull, one arm, ,and a leg are shattered, and there arc great holes in sevefal parts of the body, caused by the terrible crash when he dropped to the rocks at Jacob's Ladder some time this morning. How long he lay at the bottom is not known, Constable Hamilton was patrolling the • cliff s, hoping - to. catch a glimpse of the body of a man who leaped over at the same spot on Friday, when hc. saw a man crawling painfully up the rocks. Calling for aid, Hamilton unhesitfcatingly climbed down the steep face of the cliff. The injured man, ashen and bleeding from his wounds, was wedged between two rocks, and was feebly trying to claw his way out. He had spent several hours trying to reaeh the top, and was completely exhausted. Below were two smashed pairs of spectacles. "What happened? asked the constable, hastily attending to the man's wounds. "I came from Summer Hill," he gasped. "I don't know what happened. I forget ... I fell . . . My leg, it hurts." Strapped to Stretcher. Unable to answer questions, the man lay quiet and still while being attended to, and then was lifted 20 feet from his perilous position with ropes round his aching body. Then he was strapped to a stretcher with tackle provided by the police, and slowly dragged to the top. At St. Vincent's Hospital he is given a good chance of recovery, and police are trying to trace his relatives. Constable Hamilton is trying to trace a man whd told him this morning that a relative, who was staying with him for a few days, had disappeared. This man, he said, had had business worries, but it is not certain that he and the Gap victim are identical. Only one other person who has crashed over the Gap on to the rocks has been rescued alive — a Miss Anderson, who lived for a day. A woman, who landed in the water, some years later, was rescued. Edward James Gaskell, one of today's heroes, has participated in at least 30 such efforts, and it was he who went down after Miss Anderson. Police believe that another ,^man fell to his doom at the same spot yesterday. A coat and hat were found near Greave's monument, but their owner cannot be found.