SECOND EDITION. ACCIDENTS AND FATALITIES

Evening Post, Volume LIX, Issue 11, 13 January 1900, Page 6

SECOND EDITION.

A CCIDENTS AND FATALITIES

[BY TELKGRAI'H — I'ItESS ASSOCIATION.^ CARTERTON, This Day. A married man named John Mitchell was thrown from his horse yesterday and had his skull badly fractured. There is little hope of his recovery. SHOCKING DEATH OF A BOY. Tho Railway Wharf was yesterday the scene of a terrible accident, which reBiiHed fatally, to a 12-year-old lad named William Gibson, the son of Mr. Thomas C. Gibson, \oi Petone. Mr. Gibson is employed on the Government Railways, but is at present staying m Wellington on a visit, and he last saw his son alive at dinner time yesterday. The accident, strange to say, was not actually seen by anyone. From the facts ascertainable, however, it appoars that Paul Vanzanten, wharf labourer, was working on the Railway Wharf, unloading the Haupiri, and at 5.20 p.m. was moving a truck along the wharf, pushing with his back against it, when suddenly he felt the wheel bump against and go over something. He stoppedi and on looking saw a boy under the truck lying face downwards, the front wheel having passed •over his back. Vanzanten lifted the poor lad, and as he laid him gently on the wharf the boy exclaimed : ' Oh, mister, you have killed me." The man at once ran to get medical assistance, but when Dr. Teare arrived he could only pronounce life to be extinct. How the boy got on the line, or whether he was riding on the buffer and slipped oft" can only be surmised. He was taken to the Morgufe, where Dr. Tcare held a postmortem examination to-day. As the Haupiri was to leave at noon, the Coroner this morning took the statements of several whose rvidence was desirable. John Robertson, second officer of the Haupiri, stated that he had seen deceased rfding about on the trucks at the Railway Wharf during -he afternoon, and warned him to get off, but he did not do so. Witness told him there would be an accident sooner or later, but did not actually see the accident. The track that went over the lad was empty. Witness had often seen boys playing about and fishing, and had always warned them of danger from the trucks. He could not see how danger was to b • avoided, unless someone was there always to prevent the boys going on the wharf at all. Other witnesses gave evidence as to the danger of boys playing on the wharf. The inquest was proceeding as we went to press.