A 12-year-old boy dived eight metres from a bridge into a river to rescue his six-year-old sister who had fallen from a bridge.
Avikash Singh’s heroic action came after his sister, Artika, fell off the Moto Bridge into the Ba River at Moto.
Avikash, without a moment’s hesitation, threw aside his school bag and dived into the water eight metres below and pulled his sister by her hair to safety.
The Fiji Times report on August 13, 1985, said the shocked Moto community in the interior near Ba called for a proper pedestrian walkway to be built along the bridge.
The narrow bridge had several steel-framed ledges jutting out at points on each side to provide safety to passing pedestrians.
The ledges had steel bars on three sides, but floods two years prior had damaged all the ledges along one side, and they needed to be repaired.
Artika, was in Class One at the time at Moto Sanatan Sammelan School. She was returning home from school at about 3.30pm when the incident occurred.
Speaking to The Fiji Times at the scene, Avikash, who was in Class Seven, said they had moved on to the ledge to allow a van to pass when a second one approached at high speed.
He said Artika, who had just stepped off the ledge on to the side of the bridge was caught by surprise, took a step backwards and plunged into the river.
The van disappeared around a bend past the bridge, and with nobody else nearby, Avikash made good use of his swimming hobby and dived in after her.
Artika, while plunging into the water, narrowly missed smashing into a collection of sharp-edged tree branches brought under the bridge by floodwaters.
“I just put my bag down and jumped in, got hold of her and pulled her to the bank,” Avikash said.
One of their uncles, who happened to be passing at the time, came across the drenched children and took them home.
Artika received a scratch on the left arm, and her brother suffered bruises on the lip and right shoulder. They were examined at Nailaga hospital and allowed to go home.
A teacher of their school, Parshu Ram, urgently called on the authorities to repair the bridge and build a pedestrian pathway.
“Even for adults, it is difficult to stand on those ledges,” Mr Ram said.
“Here we have children right from Class One.”
Mr Ram said several workmen had come sometime in 1984 to work on the damaged parts but left without completing the job.
“They seem to just use up the allocation and then say there is no money left,” he said.
