There were some dramatic front-page stories in the 7 June 1973 edition of the Cayman Compass. ‘CAL Pilot Makes Safe Landing After Brac Flight Loses Engine’, told how Captain Harrison Bothwell, 25, saved the day after taking off from Owen Roberts International Airport. He recounted how the plane had only reached 200 feet altitude when “there was a terrible noise and vibration in the number one (left) engine”, but he was able to turn the plane around and land safely at Owen Roberts, saying after that “we found out, she’ll fly on one engine”.
Another story told of a different kind of hero: ‘Girl Rescues Her Sister From White Hall Bay”. The article began, ‘Christine’s dead!’ as Kareen, 13, ran shouting to her mother’s home. The 11-year-old had dived into the water, and one of the nearby children told Kareen her sister went down. She said she “jumped in and got her. She looked like she was dead to me”. Another sister, Gaynell, 19, saw the commotion, “picked her up” and got someone to drive them to the hospital, where she spent three days. Christine said she didn’t know what happened, “but I am very happy that my sister pulled me from the bottom of the sea”.
A third article on the front page told the unfortunate story of two young men dying when the car they were in hit the cement post of the George Town cemetery. A third man in the Austin Mini was hospitalised in Jamaica, and police said they had not yet discovered who was driving.
And a Compass editorial focused once again on the issue of speeding. Calling attention to two “needless deaths” that week, the editorial said, “Speeding and reckless driving are a problem on Cayman; a problem we suspect, of dimensions greater, proportionately, than even in many large and populous nations.”
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