PLAYED TO DEATH.

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LX, Issue 10831, 1 April 1932, Page 3

PLAYED TO DEATH.

SUICIDE IN MID-OCEAN

An extraordinary story was revealed >at the inquiry into the death on the high seas of the chief engineer of the cargo steamer, Media, when homeward hound from Sydney to London. , . . The victim of the tragedy had taken up a course of serious concentration on the game of bridge as antidote to insomnia. The victim had put a revolver to his forehead. His brains were blown out. Yet he survived for 12 hours after the shooting. A game involving a doubled notrump hand which the victim had redoubled and won, had preceded the tragedy by a few minutes. The day after leaving Colombo, en route from Sydney to London, the Esperauce Bay picked up a message from the Media asking for medical assistance* Capt. Mackenzie steamed at full speed to the rescue. In Mid-Ocean.

As soon a.s she got near the Esperance Bay launched a lifeboat and in spite of a heavy swell, landed doctors on the British tramp. For several hours the doctors worked on the patient who made a wonderful rally, though lie had shot himself over nine hours before. Suddenly the patient broke out into a wild dissertation on the game of bridge, collapsed, and died. For some months the victim had suffered from insomnia through worries over his work. He had been advised to take up some liohby while at sea to take his mind off the ordinary daily grind. Finding some congenial "companions, he. took up bridge with enthusiasm. His fellow-passengei's thought that bridge had cured his malady, and marvelled at the influence it had had on his mind. m On the day the tragedy occurred the victim wait in one of his brightest moods. He had started playing at 0 a.m. with three of his shipmates. >

At 10 a.m. ho went lour no-trumps over a four-diamond call. He was doubled, and promptly redoubled. lie won the hand by the odd trick amid the plaudits of partner, opponents, and lookers-on—-one finesse giving him the victory. Immediately the counting was over he asked to be excused, and three minutes later the report of a revolver disturbed the quartet at the bridge table.