CROP OF ACCIDENTS

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 122, 26 May 1941, Page 4

CROP OF ACCIDENTS

REMARKABLE CASES

CRASH, FIRE, EXPLOSION (0.c.) SYDNEY, May 24. A Junee farmer, Mr. Reg White, miraculously escapcd death when he was tossed around by the blades of a hoe-drill and then run over by a set of very heavy harrows. White was driving a horse-drawn hoe-drill on his mother's property, and a chain connecting the horses with the machine broke. While White was repairing it, the horses moved off, and he fell on the ground in front of the machine. To save himself going under the drills he grabbed a chain —but it broke, and he was caught in the blades of the hoe-drill before he could roll clear. Turned and tossed, and bumped against the ground for 50 yards, White was finally thrown clear. But then he was run over by a set of harrows being drawn by the drill.

In a semi-conscious condition, he was at last thrown from under the harrows, just as his brother. Lance White, who had seen the whole occurrence from a distance, rushed up. At Junee Hospital 13 stitches were inserted in one wound to White's back, and an operation was performed. He is making good progress. When White was picked up by his brother, his clothes had been torn to shreds by the drill blades and the harrows.

Another extraordinary accident occurred at Berwick, a Melbourne suburb, where two trucks collided outside a parage. They skidded across the road and, locked together, crashed into a petrol pump which burst into flames. The fire spread to the garage which was destroyed. While a school teacher who was holidaying at Berwick, was assisting in rescue work, an acelvlene cylinder exploded and a piece of flying metal severed one of his legs. Mrs. Donald McNabb, of Berwick, was killed in the crash, and six other men besides the school teacher suffered severe injuries. Roller Hits House

In Sydney a woman of 70 jumped just in time to save her life from a runaway 12-ton motor roller at Ultimo. The engine stalled \frhile the roller was being driven up a street and the brakes failed. When the roller began to run backwards the driver headed for a lane, but then noticed that children were playing in it, so headed instead for the gutter on the other side of the road. When he was only a few feet from the kerb he saw the woman sitting in the porch of her house which he knew the roller must hit. Unfortunately the woman was deaf and did not hear his warning. When the roller suddenly crashed through her fence she jumped clear just before it flattened the stool on which she had been sitting and wedged itself in her doorway.

When a Bren-gun carrier crashed through a bridge near Bathurst and fell 10 feet' to the hank of a creek, one soldier was killed and another had both feet severed. The third suffered severe chest lacerations and the fourth was almost overcome by petrol fumes. The accident was caused by a side chain on the carrier becoming locked. The carrier came to rest upside down on the creek bank and the four men inside were in cramped positions for an hour and a half before it could be turned over. When rescuers lifted them out they found one man dead and two others unconscious. Miles of Trains One day this week also two rare accidents resulted in six miles of suburban electric trains piling up all the way from Central to Croydon, one of the western suburbs. First one train was stuck in part of the underground tunnel owing to a faulty switch. The following train was ordered to push it out, but owing to a rare electrical trouble this train became separated into parts and itself was stuck. The accident happened at peak traffic hours when trains are scheduled to seconds, not minutes, hence the quick bank-up. It took some smart work by traffic officers and signalmen to make lightning changes in schedules without endangering the lives of scores of thousands of passengers.

Finally, yesterday forenoon, a collier, passing under Gladesville Bridge, crashed into one of the pylons, dislocated the mechanism which moves the central span of the bridge to let ships through and wrenched the tramlines on the bridge out of alignment. The accident happened when people were going to work and thousands were late. It is believed that the collier was forced to swerve suddenly when a lighter appeared.