DOWN AND OUT

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 38, 7 May 1927, Page 1

DOWN AND OUT

MAN SEEKS DEATH GIRL’S GALLANT RESCUE ALONE IN DARK (From Our Own Correspondent .) WANGANUI, To-day. A sensational attempt at suicide occurred last night. A young woman named Betty Facer, engaged as a maid at the Collegiate School, was going to see friends at Wanganui East last evening about 8.30. When crossing the road to Dublin Street Bridge she saw a man pass in front of a bus and nearly get run over. He had no coat on, and she thought his- conduct peculiar. She passed him on the bridge and went a few yards. She looked back, and saw him astride the top rail and then disappear over the side of the bridge. She took off her coat, hat, and shoes, and jumped over after him and grabbed him and tried to drag him ashore.

The man, then desperately fighting, caught her by the neck of her dress, and nearly choked her. She kicked him off, got him again and eventually dragged him to the bank. The river was all in darkness there, and she had to work alone in the slimy mud. The young heroine had only recovered from a severe attack of influenza, and had lost her voice completely, and though she called for assistance no one heard her cries. Eventually she got the man to terra firma. In reply to questions, he said he had been out of work and had no money. His last job was at Taihape, and he had tramped to Wanganui. He was out of work and hungry, so was going to finish all. He appealed so much to her sympathy that she gave him all the money she had (a £1 note), and the man came toward town.

The police tried to locate him, without avail.

Miss Facer returned to the college in a dreadful condition, shivering as with ague. To-day she is fairly well again, though Tier arms and chest are all scratched and bruised and bear evidence of her struggle with the man in the water.