ACCIDENTS AND DEATHS

Evening Star, Issue 19126, 18 December 1925, Page 10

ACCIDENTS AND DEATHS

FALL FROM LADDER. A young married man named E. Welsh, employed by the Telegraph Department at 'New Plymouth, received severe spinal injuries yesterday morning by falling from a ladder while working on the lines. He was removed to hospital. ROWING BOAT FATALITY. . The opening of tho Kawatiri (Westport) Rowing Club’s season was marred by the drowning of James Gilbert Findlay, chemist," aged thirty-three years. Findlay, who was a married man, stroked tho crew that won the race, and when the boat was returning it shipped a. sea and swamped. The crew hung on to the boat as it drifted down the river in the rapid current, but nearing tho crane wharf Findlay attempted to swim ashore with the coxswain, Albert M‘Lean. Becoming exhausted, he told M‘Lean to carry on by himself, and shortly afterwards he disappeared. M'Lean reached the propeller of the Ngakuta and hung on until rescued. Mr Finnerty, in a dinghy, rescued- the other three members of the crow—Grogan, Mackenzie, and Caldwell.

ACCIDENTALLY SHOT HIMSELF. At the inquest at Waiuta (Westland) touching the death of a young man named Hansel Stokes, aged nineteen, who was found with a pca-riflo bullet through his neck on the bank of the Big Grey River, evidence was given by William* M‘Vicar, of Alexander Reefs, that deceased had leit camp at witness’s farm, where he had worked for six months, to search for a pack-horse. He took a pea-rifle ami did not return, being found next day within 2it of the river. Witness believed that deceased had been lying in wait for paradise ducks, and that the gun had gone off accidentally. A verdict of accidental death was returned.