OPEN VERDICTS RETURNED

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22343, 5 March 1938, Page 4

OPEN VERDICTS RETURNED

DEATH OF TWO WOMEN AFTER ACCIDENT TRAGEDY AT BARRY'S BAY Open verdicts were returned yesterday at inquests into the deaths of Gladys Winifred Wilson, aged 38, and Emily Myra Wilson, aged 33, of 15 Randolph street, Woolston. Both women were passengers in a car driven by Clarence George Nicholas which went over the bank on the road at Barry's Bay hill on January 3. The older woman died at the time of the accident, the verdict, which was in accordance with the medical evidence of Dr. A. B. Pearson, pathologist at the Ch'ristchurch Public Hospital, stating that the cause of death was a lacerated spinal cord and a dislocated spine. The vounger woman died on January 15, the cause of death being stated as toxaemia associated with a septic wound. Mr W. R. Lascelles appeared lor Nicholas, and Senior-Sergeant P. C. Feltou conducted the inquest for the police . Frederick Arthur James, the driver of a car which was overtaken by thai involved in the accident, said that lit; was driving about a foot from th* bank on the left-hand side of the road, which had a slight bend. He saw the car driven by Nicholas reflected in hi** rear view mirror, and heard the horn sounded. He did not pull any further towards the left, as he was close to the bank. He estimated that the othw car passed him at a distance of from four feet to four feet six inches, and that it could have passed two feel further away from the bank. Nicholas said that the driver of the car in front seemed to turn out towards him as he was attempting to pass. He considered that the sole cause of the accident was that the driver in front failed to get over to the correct side of the road to allow him to pass "Weren't you infringing all the regulations in trying to pass with a blind bend ahead?" asked the Coroner (Mr E. C. Levvey), adding that the wheelmarks showed that the car began to leave the road some distance before il reached the other car. A plan of the accident was produced by Constable W. J. Harper.