CRAWLED TO SAFETY

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 264, 1 July 1932, Page 6

CRAWLED TO SAFETY

AGED PROSPECTOR'S PLIGHT IN AUSTRALIAN BUSH. COURAGE OF* HIS MATE. SYDNEY, June 17. An epic of human courage and endurance was told when a 69-year-old prospector named William Allison, who broke his left leg in rough eountry more than 50 miles from Graf- 1 ton, reached South Grafton to obtain medical , assistance. Allison received his injuries at one o'clock on a Saturday afternoon, but it was 3 o'clock on the following Tuesday before he reached a doctor. Allison and' his mate, Thomas Weekly, were in mountainous country 11 miles from a road, and Allison was scrambling along a narrow ledge or cliff when he f ell into a roclcy gorge 20 feet below, breaking his left leg below the knee and badly injuring his left hand. Unable to walk or stand, Allison had to depend on his mate, elderly and not very rebust, to get him out of country which even a man with all his limbs sound would find difFicult to negotiate. He had to eross a shallow stream. Weekly placed a row of stones across the stream, and using only his right

[ leg and right arm, Allison dragged i himself from stone to stone. It was I a painful progress. Next he had to i climb a rocky cliff face on the other side of the gorge. He achieved this ' with his good hand and leg, while i Weekly supported him from behind. i To negotiate the remaining two miles | to their camp, Weekly fashioned a i crutch from a branch of a tree, and I with this ' supporting him on one side and with Weekly on the other, . Allison reached the camp after suffering five hours of torture. For the last quarter of a mile, where the country was not so : rough, Weekly carried Allison on his back. They were still 11 miles from the main road and the telephone. Two young prospectors who appeared unexpectedly put hot paclcs on the inj jured leg all through Saturday night. , On Sunday the leg was swollen, and i Allison remained in camp all day, i but next day he was supported over | hilly country to the main road. This journey lasted four hours. He was too exhausted to go further that day, and rested until Tuesday morning, when the Grafton Ambulance was summoned by telephone. The ambulance transported him 40 miles to South Grafton.