WOMAN KILLED

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 69, Issue 158, 16 April 1949, Page 3

WOMAN KILLED

Car Falls Into Stream

THREE OTHERS INJURED (P.A.) WANGANUI, April 14. A woman was killed and her husband and two small daughters injured when a Igiht car plunged over a 20-foot bank on the Para Para road to-day. They were on their way *o Auckland for Easter. The woman killed was Mrs Gladys Amelia Smaller, aged 43, the mother of seven children. Her husband, Douglas Valentine Smaller, a freezing worker, who was driving the car, suffered fractured ribs and head injuries. Heather Smaller, aged 14, suffered head injuries and concussion, and Doreen Smaller, aged nine, suffered shock. The Smallers’ rental car passed a Wanganui - bound bus about 20 yards from the bridge at the 31-mile peg, but missed the bridge and dived over the bank into a shallow stream. Passengers in the bus removed Mr Smaller, was was unconscious, and his daughters from the car with great .difficulty. Three months ago Mr Smaller was the driver of a van which rolled 100 feet down a bank off a road near Hunterville. He then suffered a fractured shoulder and ribs.

YOUNG MAN DIES

' STRUCK BY MOTOR-CAR (P.A.) WELLINGTON, April 15. A youth died in the Wellington Hospital to-day from injuries received when he was struck by a car shortly before midnight on Thursday. He was Keith Maiulerson, aged 17, of King’s Crescent, Lower Hutt. The accident happened in a stream of traffic between Paekalcariki and Paraparaumu. ■

TRUCK STRIKES POWER POLE (P.A.) . TIMARU, April 15. Two young men' had a fortunate escape from serious injury when a light truck in which they were travelling got out of control going down the hill on the Otipua road near Saltwater Creek, Timaru, about 8 o’clock on Thursday evening. The truck struck an electric power pole after rounding a bend. The hood was torn off and the truck travelled a few yards along a bank on the side of the road and then went through a gorse fence, finally coming to rest in a paddock. Both occupants were able to walk away.

MOTOR-CYCLIST INJURED (P.A. GISBORNE, April 15, A motor-cyclist, Geoffrey Leonard Needham, aged 19, was sent to hospital last night in an unconscious condition, suffering from serious head injuries, which he received in a collision with a car.

Needham, whoso home is in Whakatane, had been working for seven or eight months, in Gisborne as a clerk in a mercantile firm.

The motor-cycle was badly damaged. The hospital reported the condition of Needham to be serious.

HORSEMAN! INJURED

FALL DOWN STEEP INCLINE (P.A.) NAPIER, April 15. A seven-mile journey on foot which took five hours to accomplish was undertaken by a party of six persons, including an ambulance officer and a nurse, to bring to the Napier Public Hospital early this morning a scrub cutter who had been injured in a fall over a cliff. He is Maxwell Warren, aged 3G. While returning to his camp at the back of Tutira, 40 miles north of Napier, with a party last evening, after visiting a nearby settlement for stores, Warren’s horse missed its footing and crashed down a 50-foot steep incline, carrying Warren with it. The horse was killed in the fall, but Warren escaped with a fractured right wrist and probable internal injuries. Warren was unable to move, and a member of the party went to the nearest homestead and communicated with an ambulance, which arrived at 9.30 p.m. Then began a trek of three miles and a half over rough country with a stretcher to rescue the injured man. After an arduous journey the party arrived back at the homestead at 2.30 a.m., and an hour later Warren was in hospital. A remarkable feature of tne accident was the fact that a nine-and-a-half months baby, which Warren was car-, rying on his saddle, was caught on a cut manuka stump and did not follow the horse and Ader down the slope.