LAKE SUMNER ACCIDENT

Press, Volume LXXV, Issue 22906, 30 December 1939, Page 14

LAKE SUMNER ACCIDENT

YOUNG MAN DROWNED VERDICT AT INQUEST A verdict that death was due to accidental drowning was given by the Coroner. Mr E.. C. Levvey, when an inquest was held into the death of Donald Ritchie Joyce yesterday morning. Joyce was drowned while fishing at Lake Sumner on Boxing Day. Clarence Bertram Collister, of Christchurch, gave evidence. He was out in a canoe with Joyce on Tuesday afternoon, he said, and it capsized 20 yards from the shore, in deep water. Joyce was unable to catch hold of the canoe to support himself, and witness was unable to keep Joyce’s head above water. Joyce went under, and when witness reached the shore Joyce had not reappeared. Both were fully clothed at the time and wearing oilskin coats and hats, witness said. Joyce was- in knee gumboots and witness was in thigh gumboots. Joyce, who was 18 years old, had told witness that he could swim a few strokes. Constable F. L. Hook, of Waikari, said that he had been told of the accident on Tuesday, and on Wednesday he had gone to the lake and tried to drag the body out, without result. On Thursday, having returned to Waikari, he had been told- that the body had been recovered with the drag. Norman P. Davey, the owner of the canoe, and John Lloyd Joyce, a brother of the dead youth, both of whom were at Lake Sumner at the same time, gave evidence. They had been out shooting on Tuesday afternoon. John Joyce said that no blame attached to Collister, and the Coroner said that obviously' Collister had done all he could to try to save Joyce, and had had a very narrow escape himself.