ELEVEN DEAD.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 305, 27 December 1939, Page 4

ELEVEN DEAD.

FOUR DAYS , TOLL.

ACCIDENTS AT CHRISTMAS.

FIVE DROWNINGS REPORTED.

Eleven people are dead as the result of holiday accidents over the four days of the Christmas period, between Saturday and Boxing Day. Of these five were drowned and six killed in various road accidents. In addition, mishaps reported in the "Auckland Star" for the four days indicate that 14 were injured, some seriously.

Four of these killed -were motor cyclists, two being killed instantly on Christmas Day in a head-on collision between two cycles, while the other tragedy occurred in a smash involving ft cycle and car near Pakuranga. A car's headlong crash over a bank near Gisborne caused the death of a motorist, while a Christchurch man suffered fatal injuries in a fall from his bicycle. Two of these fatal accidents occurred in the Auckland Province, but remarkably few other mishaps occurred in and around the city.

One Aucklamler was drowned. He disappeared at Orewa Beach during the rescue of a man and a girl who had been swept out to sea. The other bathers lost their lives after getting into difficulties at St. Kilda, Dunedin, and at Waitarere Beach, near Palmereton North, while a youth was drowned in. the Ruamahang* River, near Featherston, and a nine-year-old boy was lost in a river near Gieborne.

An analysis of the injury cases shows that 10 persons suffered injuries in accidents on the road a further three in falls, and another in a mishap with a haymaking machine.