Seriously Injured Man Pinned Under Truck

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30391, 16 March 1964, Page 12

Seriously Injured Man Pinned Under Truck

A critically injured man, with one arm almost severed, was pinned for some time beneath his overturned truck before he was discovered on Saturday evening. He is Patrick James Murray Chaffey, aged 30, married, farm manager, of Glen Colwyn station, 17 miles north of Cheviot.

His arm has been amputated and he was reported to be on the seriously ill list at the Christchurch Hospital last evening. He suffered head, arm and multiple injuries and shock.

The accident occurred on the Main North road, about 10 miles north of Cheviot, near the Leader bridge. Mr Chaffey had attended the Cheviot show and was returning home alone in a utility truck when it left the road and struck a telephone pole, breaking it in two places. The vehicle continued on for some distance, rolled over two or three times and Mr Chaffey was thrown out. The truck came to rest on its side in a river flat.

Two men, who work at Benmore and who were visiting the district for the weekend, were driving to a dance at Spotswood about 9.30 p.m. when they saw the broken pole and telephone lines. They looked down into the gully and saw the headlights of the truck.

They climbed down and lifted the truck off Mr Chaffey, who had lost a good deal of blood and was deeply unconscious. They carried him to the road and one man remained with him while the other drove to Parnassus and informed the ambulance driver, Mr George Adams. It was not possible to get a doctor to the scene as all the telephone lines were down. Mr Chaffey was taken in the ambulance to Cheviot where he was attended by Dr. B. F. Heyward before being taken to the Christchurch Hospital.

It is not known how long Mr Chaffey was pinned beneath the truck as there were no witnesses to the accident.

The truck was extensively damaged. The roof was bent down over the steering wheel where it struck the pole, the bodywork was badly crumpled and all the glass in the windows was smashed.

Constable J. J. Quirke, of Cheviot, went to the scene. The telephone lines were restored about 3 p.m. yesterday.