Dramatic Rescue of Two Missing Skiers
Published in The Herald, Wednesday 19th August 1936, page 1
By Our Special Representatives
GRIM STRUGGLE TO HOSPITAL
Relief Party Just In Time
Special Pictures Received Today From Alps Search Area
Typical wild country below the snow-line in the Big River Valley, photographed by a Herald cameraman yesterday. Several miles upstream from here the skiers were found.
A party of searchers, comprising, ski club members and men from the Maude and Yellow gold mine, Glen Valley, setting out up the rugged Big River Valley yesterday.
Glen Valley, Wednesday.—Alive but very weak, the missing skiers, Messrs Cleveland Cole, 37, of Glenhuntly, and Percy E. Hull, 23, of Hawthorn, have been found.
Relayed by searchers who struggled along the Big River Valley throughout yesterday and last night, this news was brought to Glen Valley at 11·45 a.m. today by a horseman who galloped into the township.
He reported that Hull and Cole were found at 8·30 a.m. yesterday 13 miles upstream. They were lying beside the hollow log where G. Howard Michell, of Adelaide, their companion, left them on Friday when he pushed forward for help.
Cole’s condition is believed to be very serious, but when searchers reached them, Hull was able to struggle to his feet.
For 36 hours the searchers have been battling to bring the men into Glen Valley. They must carry them in their arms five miles over rough country through tangled scrub which horsemen cannot penetrate. At times the rescuers must step perilously from rock to rock with their burden.
The party which rescued the men comprised Messrs W. and J. Batty, J. Moore, Nightingale, Rootsey and Bittner.
For eight days the missing men had been without food or shelter, exposed to driving rain and snow, and temperatures below freezing point.
Hope Almost Abandoned
Word has been sent to Omeo, and a doctor will leave there immediately for Glen Valley, 32 miles away. It is expected the rescue party will reach here about 5 p.m.
Early this afternoon Sister Watson, the Glen Valley bush nurse, rode out on horseback along the Big River valley track to meet the rescuers and render first aid to the two men.
A log which searchers have been using to cross the Big River has been swept away by flood waters, and the rescuers will have to make a long detour to reach Glen Valley.
Horses have been sent from Glen Valley for seven miles along an old mine track which follows the river. They will meet the rescuers.
Hope of finding the missing men alive had been abandoned today, when a runner came clown out of the mountains shortly before noon with the news that both Cole and Hull had been found.
Relief parties set out immediately to assist in bringing the men down the precipitous gorge. Cattlemen are amazed that they have survived their terrible experience.
They say that the weather during the past two weeks has been the worst this winter. The plight of Cole and Hull was made more serious by a fierce mountain storm which broke again last night and was sweeping the Alps relentlessly today.
The blizzard was raging over the High Plains and from the snowline down hail and rain drove down before a north-easterly gale.
When found it was the eighth day since the missing men, foodless, without blankets or spare clothing, had staggered down from the heights of Bogong into the rugged Big River valley, in a despairing effort to reach civilisation.
Previously they had spent four days crouched in a hole in the snow, into which they had crept for protection from a blizzard which trapped them after they left the shelter of Cope Hut, in the desolate High Plains.
Mr P. E. Hull
Mr C. Cole
Searchers’ Desperate Bid
The story of the search for Hull and Cole is an epic of self-sacrifice. About 130 cattlemen, miners, and skiers and walkers from Melbourne had joined forces in what they believed to be a last desperate attempt to reach the men before they perished.
Climbing the sheer heights of the Big River Gorge and struggling through country hitherto uncharted many of these men have been out in blinding rain and hail for three days and three nights.
Their numbers were increased today by three parties of skiers who made a dash by car from Melbourne last night, and by a fourth party, which skied seven miles from Hotham Heights yesterday afternoon, walked four miles, and then travelled nearly 60 miles to Glen Valley.
The father of “Mick” Hull had just reached Glen Valley this morning when the runner arrived with new of the rescue of his son.
The response to the call for help in the past two days has been amazing. All postmaster and postmistresses along the Omeo-Glen Wills-Glen Valley party line stood by their switchboards throughout last night to relay the latest search plans and urgent messages, for provisions and horses.
All men in the district stopped work, storekeepers left their stores, the Maude and Yellow Mine, at Glen Valley, closed down, and those miners who did not join in the search, remained in the town to carry on essential services, and release experienced men for the search.
Mr G. Howard Michell, of Adelaide, one of the ski-ing party of three, who left his companions to seek help. He is now in Omeo Hospital.
