Doctor Dies When Car Leaves Road

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30811, 24 July 1965, Page 1

Doctor Dies When Car Leaves Road

“The Press” Special Service RAETIHI, July 23. Raetihi’s only medical practitioner was found dead today in his car which had plunged 20 feet down a bank into the Mangaturuturu river, 15 miles north of Raetihi.

He was: James Samuel McVeigh, aged 51. The driver of a south-bound goods train saw Dr. McVeigh’s car from the Main Trunk line, which runs parallel to the State Highway. The car was over the bank where there had been a bridge until the road was re-aligned and a new bridge built nearby. Born in Dunedin, Dr. McVeigh was educated at St. Kevin’s College and Otago University, where he graduated M. 8., Ch.B. He was a house surgeon at Christchurch Hospital for a year, and was at the Prince Alfred Hospital, Sydney, when the Second World War broke out He joined the 2nd N.Z.E.F.,

serving in field ambulances and the Mobile Surgical Unit from 1940 to 1944 in the Middle East and Italy. He was wounded in Tunisia. Until 1953 he served in the territorials end was a lieu-tenant-colonel in command of the 3rd Field Ambulance. After the war, Dr. McVeigh practised in Christchurch and for a period was resident surgical officer and anaesthetist at Christchurch Hospital. In 1950, he went to Britain where he took a post-gradu-ate course and was admitted as a member of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. He returned to practise in

Christchurch in 1953, and moved to Hastings in 1959. In 1963, he moved to Raetihi. Dr. McVeigh was an enthusiastic Rotarian and golfer, and was keenly interested in repertory. He is survived by his wife, son, Christopher, aged 20, a law student at Christchurch, and daughter, Brigid, aged 18, a nurse, at Auckland.