BOY DROWNED

Wairarapa Times-Age, 9 January 1939, Page 4

BOY DROWNED

ACCIDENT AT WAIKANAE. GIRL COMPANION RESCUED. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, This Day. Stepping into a hole while wading in the Waikanae River on Saturday afternoon, Alec Eggan, aged about 14, an orphan, was drowned. A girl who was with' him had a narrow escape and was revived only after artificial respiration had been applied. Eggan’s guardian was Mr M. Deckston, 104 Rintoul Street, Wellington. With several other children he had been staying at a farm near the mouth of the Waikanae River. On Saturday afternoon the children were sunbathing on the banks of the river. Eggan and the girl started to wade across a backwater in the river to get to a small island and in doing so walked •into a deep hole. The girl was rescued by a witness of the accident, but Eggan disappeared. The accident occurred at 3 p.m.

Sergeant A. Johnson and Sergeant P. Alsop, of Wellington, and Constable Smith, of Paekakariki, began a search for the body later in the afternoon, but were unsuccessful. Yesterday the search was continued and the body was recovered at 2 p.m. and brought to the Wellington morgue.