Girls drown in car

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33611, 13 August 1974, Page 2

Girls drown in car

(New Zealand Press Association') AUCKLAND, August 12. Two girls, aged 18 months and four years, drowned today when the car in which they were travelling left the road just south of Mercer and plunged into the Waikato River.

The girls were: Jacqueline Susan Curtis, aged four, of 84 Cascades Rd, Pakuranga, and Theresa Catharine Curtis, aged 18 months, of the same address. The car was being driven by their mother, Mrs A. Curtis, of Pakuranga, in rain. She lost control of the car on a bend about a mile south of Mercer, near the bridge over the Whangamarino Stream. A police spokesman said today that it appeared that Mrs Curtis had fought to keep the car on the road, but had finally lost control about 100

yards from the bend, where the vehicle left the road and plunged into the river. The car, which flipped upside down on impact, was almost submerged. Only the rear wheels were showing above the water. Mrs Curtis was apparently dazed, but managed to free herself by swimming through the driver’s window, the police spokesman said. When the police arrived she was on the bank of the river, very distressed. A motorist following Mrs Curtis’s car saw the accident and called the police. The bodies of the girls, still in their nightdresses, were found in the car.