DEATH ON NORTH ROAD

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22335, 24 February 1938, Page 13

DEATH ON NORTH ROAD

CYCLIST STRUCK BY CAR COLLISION ON NEW YEAR’S DAY The inquest into the death of William O’Callaghan, labourer, of Belfast, who died in the Christchurch Public Hospital oh January 6, as a result of injuries received in a collision with a motor-car on the Main North road, Belfast, on January 1, was concluded before the Coroner, Mr E. C. Levvey, yesterday. Clarence Patrick Brocherie (for whom Mr D. Wj Russell appeared), the driver of the car, a labourer of North Loburn, Rangiora, said that about 3 a.m. on January 1, he was driving about 30 miles an hour along the North road in Belfast. He was about 10 yards from O’Callaghan when he first saw him, and his bicycle was then broadside across the road. The car struck the man and the bicycle, and though the windscreen was broken he pulled up in about four or five yards. He concluded, from the manner the man was leaning on his bicycle, that he was intoxicated. There were several bottles of beer on the bicyclfi in a bag. To Mr J. K. Moloney, who appeared for O’Callaghan’s relatives, Brocherie said he had not been to a party, he had not had any liquor, nor was there any in his car. The Coroner; How did you come to hit a man in the middle of the road?

Brocherie; When I approached him he staggered to my right. Alick O’Callaghan, a brother of the deceased, said he and his brother had had three beers each in. the evening, and had later drunk three bottles of stout. When his brother left to ride home, about 1 a.m., he was quite sober. A verdict that death was due to pneumonia following concussion arising from a fracture of the skull and a laceration of the brain—injuries which were a result of the accident—was returned by the Coroner.