SHOCKING INJURY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 65, 17 March 1936, Page 8

SHOCKING INJURY.

MAN'S FOOT TORN.

| LEVEL CROSSING ACCIDENT. LORRY DRIVER IN HOSPITAL. Shocking injuries to the right foot were received by a lorry driver, Mr. James Watts, of 53. St. George's Bay Road, Parnell, aged about 30, in a level crossing accident at Avondalc about eleven o'clock this morning. He was taken to hospital in a St. John ambulance, where he was rushed to the operating theatre. Mr. Watts was the only one in the lorry. The lorry which the injured man was driving was struck by a train at the St. George's Road crossing, t Avondalc. Mr. Watts was driving his vehicle out of the : yards of the Amalgamated Brick and Pipe Company, Ltd. Just outside the gates of the yards runs the railway line, and the lorry was driven on to the rails. So severe was the' impact that thft truck,' a heavy vehicle, was turned completely round, so that it faced the way it had just come from. Wreckage from the bodywork and the engine were thrown for yards. The front wheels, were wrenched off the chassis, and the tyre from one of them was hurled some 30 yards up the street. The rim was found later still further away in some long grass in the brick works yard. Most of the front of the cab had been ripped' off level with the windscreen. Pieces of broken wood, big and small, were strewn down the line for some 50 yards. Lorry Engine Wrecked. No part of the lorry engine could have been undamaged. Bits and pieces were all over the road. .< It looked as though it had been hit with a gigantic hammer—as indeed it had. _ The footboard had gone completely. On the other hand, the, rear part of the vehiclewas scarcely touched. Neither a man's old felt hat with a pencil stuck in the brim, : nor a broad-bladcd shovel had been, displaced. ' • - Perhaps-the fullest story of the accident is told by an eye-witness, Mr. A. E. Butler,-a member of a fencing gang of 'the Railway Department, who was working just a' few yaTds away. "The truck came out 'slowly," said .Mr. Butler, "just about ten to eleven, so slowly that tile engine would" have stalled had the speed been 'any less'. It just dawdled on to the line and the rest you can see. If I had thought that Mr. Watts ha.l not seen the train I would have called out; but I thought that his speed was due to the fact that the train was coming. Ido not think that he could have seen it, because he went just at the same slow pace afcross to the loop line on to the line in use." As soon as he had seen what had happened, Mr. Butler said he hurried to the wreckage. The train had lifted the vehicle ria;ht round. He judged that the front wheels had hit the train about five yards behind the cowcatcher. He was amazed to see anyone alive, after having seen the impact. "It's My Foot." "Mr. Watts climbed out of where his seat'used to be, and hopped on one foot to tho fence/near the gatepost past which he had just driven. 'It's my foot. It's my foot,' lie called out." Mr. Butler added: "I looked at his foot and then rushed for a telephone. I got Dr. R. WarnoCjk, of A vondale, and the St. John Ambulance. Dr. Warnock dressed Mr. Watts' foot, and soon after that the ambulance came." ' One distressing feature was that the injured man was conscious all the time.

Just before he got into his truck to drive out of the gate, Mr. Watts had spoken to Mr. R.'Ockleston, works manager of the brickyards. "Mr. "Watts said to me with a laugh, 'Well, I'll be all ri?ht now until lunch, Mr. Ockleston.' I "turned and went inside, and shortly after' that I heard the crash."

The "train, a mixed goods and passenger, left Auckland for Maungaturoto at ten o'clock. It !always passes the brick yards at 10.50. .

MAN'S LEG AMPUTATED.

AGED MAORI'S INJURIES. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) NEW PLYMOUTH, this day. Severe injuries were suffered by Mr. "Bill" Lowrie, a 79-year-old Maori resident, when he was struck by a wagon of a train at the New Plymouth wharves this morning. His left leg was amputated below the knee and he suffered shock and severe abrasions to the head. His condition is very serious.