TRAM COLLISION

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 117, 20 May 1939, Page 11

TRAM COLLISION

FOUR MEN INJURED

MISHAP AT ISLAND BAY

A motorman, a conductor, and two passengers were injured when a tramcar ran into the one ahead of it at the corner of The Parade and Avon Street, Island Bay, shortly after 11 o'clock last night. The trams were extensively damaged at the ends involved in the collision.

Those injured were:—

Mr. F. Mooney, motorman, of 16 Chatham Street, concussion and shock.

Mr. C. P. Karsten, conductor, of 5 Liverpool Street, severe lacerated wounds to face and shock. * ;

. Mr. S. Pomeroy, dock worker, of 346 The Esplanade, Island Bay, injury to back and right foot. Mr. W. Manttany gardener, of 118 Clyde Street, lacerated wound to head and shock. .

The Free Ambulance took the four men to the Wellington Hospital. Mr. Karsten and Mr. Manttan received: treatment and were able to go home last night. Today Mr. Mooney and Mr. Pomeroy were still in hospital but the condition of neither man was serious.. ... . , '

It is understood that/Mr; Mooney was the motorman .of the rear tram and Mr. Karsten the conductor of the leading tram, and that the injured passengers were in the leading tram. Both trams were fairly full -. of people. The front one had pulled up at the Avon Street request stop and was setting down passengers when the other car struck it and pushed it forward. The failure of the lights on the front car. the screams of startled passengers, and the noise of breaking glass, combined to attract people from, a considerable distance, and a crowd quickly gathered. Severe damage was done to the conductor's compartment, of the front car and the motorman's compartment of the following car, but both vehicles were able to be. driven away under their own power. They were taken' back on the eastern line to the Duppa Street cross-over and from there on the proper side of the road to the Kilbirnie depot. Other trams bound for Island Bay were held up for a while at Duppa Street. . .

The Tramways Department of the City Council was today unable to give an explanation of the accident, which will be the subject of a departmental inquiry

In addition to the men who were taken to hospital three other people were injured to a lesser extent and were able to go to their homes after receiving treatment by '• a member, of the St. John Ambulance Association who lives nearby and was almost immediately in attendance, clad in pyjamas and overcoat. Before the ambulance arrived he' also attended to the four who were taken to hospital. Cuts and bruises • were the principal injuries, received by the three who did not require hospital treatment, though one of them had an ankle sprained.

The money bag of one of the conductors burst or was upset and there was a general scramble to retrieve its contents from the roadway.