Bougainville

Emergency Out in Bougainville Vic Fryer is Lucky; Someday May be Rich

11TAY back in 1928, Mr. Vic Fryer n did not think he was particularly lucky. In that year he arrived n Salamaua, New Guinea, as a arpenter for the old Ellyu Com pany. Since those days the man his nates knew as “Dim” Fryer has ived and worked in various parts f the Territory, acquired himself , wife and family, and generally mbled along through the years.

When the war finished, he re timed to Rabaul and for many lonths attempted to get timber oncessions, but without much suc ess. However, he travelled down d Bougainville and after joining Drees with a partner, he came to n agreement with the Marist lission, and proceeded to set up sawmill to mill timber on Mission md on a royalty basis.

This mill has been operating about year, and, although many inquiries >r timber have been received from abaul, Port Moresby, and the olomons, the total output has been sed locally on Bougainville Island, utput has varied, but with a full aff the mill is capable of turning it four to five thousand super feet 3r day. It is the present intention ) fnstall a four-headed planing machine to dress flooring and eatherboards, which are in great unand.

The timbers milled are hardwoods ich as tawn, tollis, and quila, and very good softwood for which the itive name is taminilli brasi, which akes an excellent flooring, but is dess for exposed portions of build gs.

As there are some 25,000 acres of nber in the mill area, it would sm that Fryer and his partner will : able to work along quietly into e future.

And this is where the luck— lich Vic Fryer did not know he •ssessed —comes in.

Just after New Year, Mrs. Fryer ft to go South and spend some ne with her children. Before she :t Territory waters she was re lied. Her husband was gravely □n a New Guinea outpost, a ptured duodenal ulcer is not pre •ely a small problem. However, e Cunningham, skipper of Drum )nd Thompson’s boat from Numa ima, transported the sick man >m Mibiri to Tearuki. At Tearuki, ster Leo, an American Marist ssion sister who is a qualified MD, >ated him with Plasma IVI, then ranged for Capt. Fox of the preaching QEA Sandringham fly ?-boa f , due on its fortnightly it, to transfer the patient to hos al in Rabaul.

For a couple of weeks, Rabaul doctors gave the patient no chance; then only a fifty-fifty hope; finally, after further weeks had slipped by, ‘‘Dim’’ was able to sit up and listen to what his doctor had to say.

Some days later, he left for South to recuperate, but medical opinion is that he should not be alive: • Apparently Sister Leo had the only supply of Plasma IVI in the Territory. • The men who brought the sick man in, had no way of knowing what treatment would be required. • Had anything happened to de lay the boat from Numa Numa, Fryer would probably have died be fore reaching Tearuki. • Had the men decided to take Fryer direct to Rabaul without appeal for help to Sister Leo, he would have landed in Rabaul to find Plasma IVI was not available—and Plasma IVI is the only drug which would be of use, and had to be ad ministered with a few hours of when the rupture occurred.

It is no wonder then that “Dim”

Fryer says, prefaced by his crooked grin, “It’s better to be born lucky than rich!”— Special Correspondent.

A young American Samoan, Son ny George Curry, 16, was electro cuted in Utelei, Tutuila, when he came in contact with high-tension wires at the top of an electricity pole. No one knows what he was doing there.