Dying Girl’s Gift

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31168, 19 September 1966, Page 2

Dying Girl’s Gift

GV Z.P A Reuter —Copyright t SINGAPORE. Sept. 18. Miss Irene Buchanan, a West Australian ballerina whose eyes gave sight to two Singapore men, was killed in a motor accident because of negligent driving by her friend, a Singapore Coroner found on Friday. Miss Buchanan, who gave her eyes to the State’s eye bank nine days after the accident on June 14. 1964, was going on a Sunday ride in a friend’s sports car when the accident occurred at Kota Tinggi. in South Malaya.

At the inquest, it was said that her driver friend was fined 150 Malaysian dollars by a court in the Malayan State i of Johore, for dangerous driving. A day after he paid the ifine, Miss Buchanan died in i a Singapore hospital after an operation. I The coroner’s inquiry into i her death was delayed for two

years as Malayan and Singapore authorities were unable to decide where the inquest should take place. Her parents in Perth gave permission for her eyes to be given to the Singapore eye bank. Corneal graft operations were carried out on two men who had been blind since birth—and three weeks later, on what would have been Miss Buchanan’s twenty-first birthday, the men had their first glimpse of the world. The coroner recorded a ver diet of death by negligent driving.