Another rafting fatality

Waimarino Bulletin, Volume 1, Issue 26, 29 November 1983, Page 1

Another rafting fatality

For the second time within a month a drowning tragedy has occurred in white water ■jafting accidents. ^HBoth have occurred in ^ibout the same locality of the Rangitikei River and both have involved local operators ... Educational T ours Unlimited of Ohakune and Buttercup Camp of National Park. In the earlier incident a young woman was drowned when she was lost overboard from an Educational Tours raft and in the most recent case a rrian who was a pilot in one of Buttercujp's rafts was drowned when he attempted to save another passenger who had become trapped in a rapid on the Pukeokahu stretch of the Rangitikei River. He was Mr Robert Samuel Murray, 28, who for the last season had been a resident of National Park. Mr Murray had been attempting to free Mr David

Prentice who had fallen overboard when he himself got into difficulties. Mr Marshall Gebbie, owner of Buttercup Camp, said that it was a very heroic and copybook rescue on the part of Mr Murray and the pilots of the other two rafts. It is the first fatality experienced in the eight years since the company

pioneered white-water rafting, said Mr Gebbie. The company had taken all the precautions and were well equipped. Senior sergeant Grahame Faulkner of Taihape described the fatality as "purely an accident". Mr Murray was very popular in National Park as a guitarist and entertainer at the Buttercup Camp.