A CURIOUS STORY

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 117, 20 May 1930, Page 11

A CURIOUS STORY

FATAL MOTOR DRIVE

DEAD MAN TAKEN TO

HOSPITAL

(By Telegraph.)

(Special to "The Evening Post.?')

PALMEESTON N., Thia Day.

A blue sedan car with a Christchurch number plato was missed from its parking place in King street at about 6. o'clock last evening. At 9.30 the dead body.-of a .man was brought into the Public Hospital in Palmerston North by an unknown motorist.

There seemed nothing to connect the two occurrences until a tragic story was pieced together, after midnight, when it was discovered that William Stafford Anderson, whose passport indicated that he was an engineer from Canada, had met his death in a motor smash at the Taonui crossing, 'near Feilding. r

Shortly after fix last evening a man giving his name '.s Bryce called at the Bunnythorpe-lfotel. He was obviously a stranger to the district, and said he was on his way to the Tongariro National Park to pick up his mother, but had made up his mind to stop at the hotel as night had come on and he did not know the district. !

Hearing that two of tho waitresses —■ Misses Casey and O'Reilly—had arranged to go to Feilding to spend the qvening at the pictures, he offered to take them in his car, and the girls promptly accepted.

At Taonui the crossing was reached. Hero the driver's want of knowledge of the. locality brought,disaster. Instead of crossing the railway at right angles, he kept -straight on.

The road immediately becomes ; bad just .there, arid the car, crashing into the county boundary sign, somersaulted twice. When it came to rest the j driver was not in the car. The two girls crawled out and found him lying on the road in severe pain. Though dazed, bruised, and cut themselves, they made their way over the railway to Mr. Neil Bailey's residence on the main road, and he promptly telephoned to Peilding. Dr.K. G. Salmond proceeded >to the scene of the accident, and found that the unfortunate man was suffering from severe head injuries,' and was a case .for urgent hospital1 treatment. 'Just then a motorist came along, and as he had a trailer on his ear it was decided to take advantage of his offer to send the victim, into the hospital without waiting for the ambulance.

The man was now unconscious, and when he arrived at the hospital it was apparent that he was . beyond human aid.

A search of his clothing revealed a passport made out in tho name of WiUliam Stafford Anderson, aged 38, engineer, of. Canada.

The two girls were taken into Feilding,'and were attended to by Dr. Salmond. .One'of them had stitches put in her arm and tho other .was severely bruised.

Tho windows 'o£ the ear wore all shattered and the mudguards bent. Otherwise it wag not seriously damaged. The car was identified as that missed from King street. The owner is Mr. F. S. GoldingUam..