MAORI BOY'S DEATH

Auckland Star, Volume LXXV, Issue 57, 8 March 1944, Page 3

MAORI BOY'S DEATH

FALL INTO HOT POOL

EVIDENCE AT THK INQUEST

(0.C.) ROTORUA, this day. "Another fatality in Rotorua following a fall inio a not pool was investigated at the Inquest into the death of a nine-year-old boy, Taupopoki Mihaka, at Whakarewarewa, on February 26. A verdict was returned by the coroner, Mr. W. L. Richards, J. P., that death followed shock from injuries received accidentally.

Mrs. Lena Paul said that she had heard cries outside her ho.me at Whakarewarewa. There was a gurgling sound after this, but she could not'see anyone in the vicinity. Witness inspected pools in the vicinity and saw deceased endeavouring to climb up a bank from a hot pool to the roadway above. Mihaka was crying, and after she helped him out and rushed him to a car to be taken to hospital, all he said was: "I am hot."

Police evidence was that, as far as could be ascertained, nobody else was in the vicinity of the pool at the time. There was nothing to reveal how the boy had been immersed in the water. There were no indications that he had slipped or that the bank had broken away.