CORONER’S COURT Student’s Death In Car Accident

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31728, 11 July 1968, Page 8

CORONER’S COURT Student’s Death In Car Accident

Events leading to the death of a young man in Riccarton Road on May 1 after the students’ procession were described by a university student in the Coroner's Court yesterday. The Coroner (Mr A. T. Bell) found that Peter Allan Kibblewhite, aged 21,/die.d on May 1 of shock and haemorrhage due to a ruptured aorta sustained in a collision with Ferdinand Roland Duffy's car at the corner of Riccarton Road and Rattray Street. John Christopher Sutherland, a student, told the Coroner that he and Kibblewhite had lunch after the students’ procession, then went to a brewery where they drank from a'keg made available to them.

At 1.15 p.m. they left the brewery and went on a bus trip around the city. About 2.30 p.m. they went to the Occidental Hotel and later to the Bush Inn Hotel. They each had two beers with a group of students, then split up. Mr Sutherland said he later looked for Kibblewhite in the hotel but could not find him. When he did find him he was sitting in the car holding a bottle of beer and an empty glass. He appeared to have been sick. Mr Sutherland said Kibblewhite seemed in a bad mood, and neither of them spoke as they drove along Riccarton Road. He recalled that their car moved out to the right and suddenly there was another car in front of them. Kibblewbite was a very impatient driver, he said, and hated being behind slow cars. If he wanted to pass another car he would pull the steering wheel more than another i driver would. Mr Sutherland said he did not know why Kibblewhite suddenly pulled out to the right They had no intention of turning into Rattray Street. The driver of the other car, Mr Duffy, aged 71, a retired railway station master, said he was driving at 30 m.p.h. or less when an approaching car turned into his path without any warning near the corner of Rattray Street. Margaret Georgina Kesteven, a Plunket nurse, said she saw the accident. It was caused,

she said, by Kibblewhite’s car turning right, heedless of oncorqing traffic. Constable F. W. Tobell, of Addington, said he was called to the scene of the accident. He found a partly empty bottle of beer between the driver’s and passenger’s seats of the car. The Coroner asked Dr L. L. Treadgold, a pathologist, if it was safe to say that the level of alcohol in Kibblewhite’s blood would have exceeded 150 milligrams per 100 millilitres at the time of the accident. Dr Treadgold said it was. The Coroner: He shouldn’t have been driving, should he? Dr Treadgold: No. Fell Into Sea Stuart Thomas White, aged 32. was found to have died of bilateral confluent bronchial

pneumonia on April 12 after falling into the sea at Lyttelton on April 10 whilo boarding the m v. Karltu. Kama Tauwhare. of Rapaki, a freezing worker, said that White fell off the gangplank while they were both on It. He jumped in and supported him until help came. Death In Storm Reginald David Fechney. aged 64, of 136 Lower Styx Road, was found to have died on April 10 of lacerations and haemorrhage of the brain, and a fractured skull, sustained when a tree fell on him in a storm. His son, Graeme Reginald Fechney, said he went to look for his father after 5 p.m. and found him behind the farmhouse with his leg under the branch of a fallen tree. He had apparently gone to feed the fowls. Pedestrian Killed William Leonard Manderson, aged 68, was found to have died on April 26 after being struck by a car as he was walking across Riccarton Road. Cause of death was shock and haemor rhage associated with multiple injuries suffered in the accident Albert William Breach, a com mercial traveller, of 9 Airiki Place, said that Manderson appeared suddenly in front of his car. He had swerved but his windscreen was shattered and when he stopped he found Manderson on the road. Cyclist Killed Jack Rawson, aged 43. was found to have died on April 18 at Prebbleton, the cause of death being severe head in* juries suffered when the cycle he was riding on Springs Road was struck by a car driven by Gary James Penn. Suicide Verdict Annie Ruth Barnard, aged 67, was found to have committed suicide on or about April 10, the cause of death being drowning and barbiturate poisoning.