Saved from jaws of Membakut croc, but...
Published on: Monday, February 02, 1931
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On the 20th Dr. and Mrs. Campbell of Sapong Estate with “Mary Helen” passed through on their way from Tenom to Jesselton where they were going for a few days makan angin. They returned again, via Membakut Estate where they stopped for lunch, on the 23rd.
On the 21st Mr. and Mrs. C. R. Smith from Keningau passed through Jesselton en route for Sandakan where Mr. Smith, as Acting Resident Interior, was going to attend a “Residents’ Meeting”. Membakat Estate was the scene of rather a tragic incident on last “hari besar” (holiday) when Dusun youth was taken by a crocodile in the Membakut river in somewhat unusual circumstances.
In the early part of the day the Manager, Mr. R. K. Hardwick, had gone out.
Some Dusuns of a village through which he passed, hearing that ‘tembak ikan’ was afoot, at once, as is their custom, tacked themselves on uninvited. Coming to the pool which had just been worked, they stopped to reconnoiter its depths in the hopes of picking up a few ‘stragglers’.
The youth, it appears, dived in first. The others were just about to follow suit when there was a terrific commotion in the pool, and the next thing they saw was their comrade in the jaws of a huge crocodile and crying out for help.
In desperation, the man’s wife, a young and good looking woman, it is said, straightway jumped into the river, immediately followed by four other men; and by their shrieks and splashing, they s0 frightened the crocodile that it let go its victim and sank out of sight. The man still alive, but with the whole of his chest badly lacerated by the brute’s teeth and bleeding profusely; was hauled out on to the bank. Thence Mr. Hardwick had him taken to the estate hospital, but the unfortunate man became unconscious and died on the way.
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