LEVEL CROSSING ACCIDENT

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25246, 26 July 1947, Page 10

LEVEL CROSSING ACCIDENT

INQUESTS ON DEATHS OF MAN AND WIFE

A verdict that David Morgan Jones died on May 7, 1946, the cause of death being multiple injuries received when the car he was driving came into collision with a train, was returned by the Coroner (Mr H. P. La wry) when an inquest was held yesterday. He also returned a verdic that Mrs Mary Kathleen Jones died from multiple injuries received when she was a passenger in the car driven by her husband.

Alwyn Bryce Richasdson, a tractordriver* said he left his home at Ashourton on the morning of May 7 with his mother and stepfather in a car driven by his stepfather. On the way to Christchurch they stopped at Forman’s road and his mother went into a house there He could not remember anything more until he recovered consciousness in hospital He did not learn of the deaths of his mother and stepfather until five weeks after the accident.

Cyril O’Connell, engine-driver on the train, said the train approached the crossing at about 35 miles an hour. There was a bend coming to the crossing, and he sounded the whistle and shut off steam to let the train drift into Hornby station The crossing was clear when he looked out the side window. He looked ahead and saw a small car come on to the south line, travelling slowly. He sounded the whistle and applied the brakes and the emergency brake. The car passed in front of the train, out of his view. For a moment he thought the car was clear, but the luggage-carrier from the car flew up in the air and he knew a collision had occurred. The train stopped 100 yards clear of the crossing, and he went back to find a motor-car thrown through the fence on the left side. David Jones was lying on his face near the righthand wheel, and Mrs Jones was lying at the rear of the car.

Corroborative evidence was given by Geoffrey George Leggett, engine-fireman. William Robert Palmer, ambulance driver, said Mrs Jones was semi-conscious when she was taken into the hospital. Medical testimony was given by Dr. M. G. Somerville, an assistant pathologist at the Christchurch Public Hospital. Accidental Drowning

At the inquest into the death o* Lowell Henry Duckworth, evidence was given by Russell Arthur Duckworth that he went into the garden where his brother had been working and saw him lying face downwards in a stream that flows through the property. Evidence was given by Dr. L. H. Cordery and by Dr. R. H. Quentin-Baxter that Lotyel! Duckworth had suffered from epilepsy Dr. Cordery said he was called to the house on July 1. Artificial respiration had been already begun and was continued for two hours, but there was no response The Coroner returned a verdict that the cause of death was accidental drowning, due to an epileptic seizure. Sergeant E. W. F. Simpson acted for the police at both inquests.