ACCIDENTS AND DEATHS

Evening Star, Issue 15538, 7 July 1914, Page 4

ACCIDENTS AND DEATHS

The snapping of a steel chain which was being used to {joist a large girder on the premises cl the "new Grand Theatre, which is now in course of construction in Little Queen street, Auckland, resulted in the instant death of Thomas Butland, of Ponsonby, yesterday morning, while his companion (R. Wilson), who was sitting at the other end of the girder, had an almost miraculous escape. A massive steel scaffolding is now m process of erection, and the men were engaged in hoisting a cross girder to position, about 30ft high. Slings had been placed on the girder, and' the hoisting rope attached. Butland was sitting on one side and his companion on the other. Tho girder was being hoisted up by means of an engine, and had got about 30ft, when the chain snapped and the girder gavo way, both ends catching on the side walla Butland was thrown off, and toppled to the ground on to some heavy logs, sustaining a broken neck and leg, ae well as other injuries to his head. Death followed immediatelv. With remarkable presence of mind, Wilson caught hold of tho thin wiring that was running up the side of tho wall, and he managed to climb up this to tho top and get away uninjured. The deceased was a single man. John Hellier, a well-known farmer at Croydon (near Gore), died suddenly yesterday. - John O’Grady, three years of ago, the son of a shepherd on Mr H. D. Buchanan’s Wairere Station (Poverty Bay), fell into a sheep dip a short distance from the homestead, and was drowned. A Gisborne telegram states that Robert M'Wbirter, who was injured by falling out of an upstairs bedroom window in a country hotel, died in the hospital. "The body of William Cochrane, who was drowned in the Motu River a fortnight ago, was discovered at a spot near where the man’s cries were heard on the night of the fatality .—Gisborne telegram.