ACCIDENTS AND DEATHS

Evening Star, Issue 18543, 28 January 1924, Page 7

ACCIDENTS AND DEATHS

BLACKSMITH’S DEATH.' DUE TO HEART FAILURE. Mr J. R. Bartholomew S.M., sitting j,3 coroner, held an inquiry at the morgue yesterday afternoon into the circumstances surrounding the death of Hugh Hodge, a Christchurch blacksmith, 68 years of ago, who died suddenly at the City Buffet on Friday afternoon. Annie Hodge, wife of deceased, identified the body as that of her husband, who resided with her at Sydenham, Christchurch. Her husband left Christchurch on Thursday morning for the Beaumont public works, and was then in bis usual good health and the best of spirits. David Weathorstone, proprietor of the City Buffet, said that the deceased arrived at the hotel on Thursday night. Witness saw him on Friday morning, when he seemed to bo in good health. That afternoon, witness was called to a room where the deceased was lying dazed on a bed, his condition being caused, witness thought, by liquor. Witness asked him to get up, but ho did not do so, and later witness again requested hiln to get up. This time the deceased did so, and collapsed in the passage. Witness communicated with Dr Evans and the police, but by the time they arrived the deceased was dead. He had complained that his back and chest were sore.

Dr Evans said that at 5.15 p.m. on Friday he was called to the City Buffet, where the body of the deceased was lying in the passage. It was quite warm, and death had evidently just taken place. There was a marked pallor of the face and blueness of the ears and fingertips j no marks of violence or signs of injury. The deceased was a big-made man, showing signs of arterial degeneration and also more than a normal accumulation of adipose tissue. From tho history of the case and an examination of the body, witness was of tho opinion that the cause of death was heart failure following fatty degeneration of tho heart muscle. The Coroner returned a verdict in accordance with the medical opinion. DASHED TO DEATH. A tragedy occurred at Mercer Bay, Karekare, Auckland, yesterday, when a fUteen-yoar-old boy named Frederick Henry Free fell from the cliffs on to the rocks. The body was recovered from an almost inaccessible position. It is understood that the boy was proceeding along the cliffs with his uncle, and was just negotiating a climb when his foot slipped and ha was dashed to death. LEG BROKEN. Vernal Walker, a boy of nine years, who lives in Thomas Burns street, broke his leg through falling from a fence in the same street on Saturday afternoon. He was conveyed to the hospital. MOTOR COLLISION! A motor car turning from Princes street into Upper Dowling street shortly after 5 p.m. on Saturday collided with an Indian motor cycle and side-chair going down Dowling street. Frederick William Richards, an Auckland commercial traveller, ■ who was driving tho car, stated that as he rounded the corner he wa4 blinded by the glare of the setting sun on the wind screen, and did not see the motor cycle until he had struck it. Miss Peggy Mercer, a young lady of eighteen years, who was a passenger in the side-chair, was taken to tho hospital suffering from shock and bruises. The two machines, it is estimated, were damaged to the extent of about £2O each—the car requiring a new radiator, A DROWNING FATALITY. Alfred Patrick Doolan, aged thirty-six years, married, was drowned while crossing tho Tamaki River on Saturday evening. He was rowing a friend named Owen Lewis across to camp, when he took a spell, and one of tho oars fell overboard. Doolan dived after it. His companion saw him wading ashore. When Lewis drifted to the land he found that Doolan had not appeared. His body was subsequently found in shallow water.—Auckland Press Association telegram.