INJURED TRAMPERS STILL NOT RESCUED

Rotorua Morning Post, Issue 5292, 3 January 1947, Page 5

INJURED TRAMPERS STILL NOT RESCUED

( Press Assn.—

SUPPLIES 0ROPPED POLICE PARTY ON WAY TO SCENE O . —

-By Telegravh- — xjopyright.)

TIMARU, Last Night. Lack of communications has prevented ihe release of information concerning the condition of the fiye injured » in the tramping accident on Barron's Saddle at the top of Mueller Glacier, and there is no account y^t as to how Roy Dixon and Stanley Allaway met their deaths. They were members of a tramping 1 party from Victoria University College, Wellington, whieh totalled 20, all students. The only information so far has been obtained from a Sonth Canterbury Aero Club Tiger Moth whieh flew over the party's encampment two miles below the head of Dobson's Valley ahout 8 p.m. tonight. As a result of a message to the Timaru police from Gle*n Lyon Station about 30 miles from the scene of the accident that sulfa drugs were wanted, the police chartered the plane and dispatched it at 6.15 p.m. with medical supplies obtained from the Timaru Hospital. Interviewed by telephone at the Hermitage to-night, Mr. H. R. Wrigley, the pilot, said that he flew at 50 feet and was attracted hy a fire whieh had been lit. A number of people, whom he presumed to be members of a tramping party, waved to him, and the plane was" so low that he called out that as they were standing on rocky ground he would drop the supplies further, over tussock. The party, said Mr. Wrigley, must have heard him, as they followed the path of the plane to the tussock, where they picked up the parcel and signalled thanks. Mr. V^rigley observed members of the rescue party coming iup the valley. A police party in a truck left Timaru this morning and a hulldozer and a truck were seen pushing up the valley towards the scene of the accident. They had completed one-third of their journey by 8 p.m. to-night.