FATAL ACCIDENTS

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 60, Issue 249, 29 July 1940, Page 6

FATAL ACCIDENTS

ASHBURTON MAN KILLED.

RUN OVER BY TRAIN AT LEVIN

AFTER BROTHER’S FUNERAL

(Per Press Association*. WELLINGTON, July 28. Mr Jolm Hepburn, a married man, a carpenter, aged 61, of Oxford Street, Ashburton, was run over and killed by a train at Levin, at 8.20 p.m. on Saturday. Mr Hepburn, who was a passenger on a train from Wellington to Palmerston North, is thought to have been standing on the platform of a railway carriage, and to have slipped and fallen on to the tracks. His body was found on the line 300 yards from the Levin railway station. Mr Hepburn attended his brother’s funeral in Wellington on Saturday afternoon, and is understood to have travelled further north to see his sons, one of whom is at the Air Force station at Levin, the other, Mr J. "W. Hepburn, being deputy-superintendent of the Palmerston North Fire Brigade. Mr Hepburn formerly belonged to the Ashburton Volunteer Fire Brigade, and the Volunteer Rifles. Mr Hepburn leaves a widow, three sons and one daughter.

DEATH OF A MOTORIST. AUCKLAND, July 28. The driver of a small roadster car was fatally injured when it ran into a telegraph pole in Epsom on Saturday afternoon. The victim was Mr Trevor Arthur Howard Kidd, an insurance, salesman, a , single man, aged 21. A passenger in the ear, Mr Donald Francis Cedenvall, was not injured. Mr Kidd suffered severe head injuries, and died in an ambulance on the way to hospital. The car was extensively damaged.

SOLDIER KILLED BY TRAIN. OHRTSTCHIJR.CH, July 28. A soldier from Burnham Camp was fatally injured when he fell beneath the excursion train at Burnham station about 9.15 to-night. He was private L. L. Williams, aged 26, of Teonuka, a member of the Third Echelon. Private Williams, who had been visiting relatives in Temuka, was stated by a passenger on the, train to have attempted to leave the train as it was pulling out of Burnham station on its return to Christchurch. He had a heavy pack on his back, which is- believed to have thrown him as be left the step of the carriage, causing him to slip between the step and the platform.

One of the passengers immediately stopped the train, but the wheels of the last three carriages had passed across his legs. Private Williams was rushed to the Christchurch Hospital and died therfe soon after admission.