DETERMINED TO DIE

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 294, 6 August 1932, Page 6

DETERMINED TO DIE

WOMAN RESISTS ATTEMPTS TO RESCUE HER FROM DEATH,. GALLANT EFFORT FAILS. Unavailing gallantry by a man who tried'to save a woman suicide against her will earned the commendation of an English coroner. The story came to light at an inquest on Mrs. Edith Hastie. Her husband related that he last saw her when she went out shopping. Later he found a letter in which' she stated: "Forgive all the pain, but my nerves are driving me mad." George Lee, aged 11, declared that he was wallcing along the canal path when the woman came over the embankment. She went back into a field on s'eeing him. He passed on, but watched her, and she then walked across the path' and entered the water. He ran baclc, and, finding an open umbrella on the path, he threw it to her, and told her to hang on to it. He then raised the alarm. She pushed the umbrella away from her. Exhausted by Struggle. H'earing the boy shout, George Sherbourn ran to the water and dived in. She had previously been still, but when he got hold of her she fought him strongly, and at one time grasped his shoulders and pulled him under with her. He kept on trying to get her out, but the struggle exhausted him, and he had to leave her and swim to the

banlc. Another man, Bert Darley, the local baths manager, then went in, but could not find the body. The coroner returned a verdict that the woman had committed suicide in a fit of depression due to nervous trouble," and he spoke in appreciation of the conduct of Sherbourn, who, he said, had gallantly dived in and done his best to save her life. The husband also thanked Sherbourn for his brave efforts to effect a rescue.