THE OTOKIA ACCIDENT

Evening Star, Issue 19412, 22 November 1926, Page 2

THE OTOKIA ACCIDENT

TO THE EDITOR.

Sir, —In your account of the accident at Otokia you state that the poor fellow who died waa found by a doctor on the Main South road. Allow me to contradict this statement. He was found hy the porter at Otokia, and was in Otokia station from 2.20 to 6.15 without any attention whatever. Who are the three motorists that passed the man in their cars and refused to take him to Dunedin, one of them saying that the man was drunk, although there was no smell of liquor on him at all? Why cannot some experienced person, such as a nurse, be sent out with the ambulance when it is called out? Only the driver arrived at Otokia, and strangers, inexperienced, travelled with the poor fellow from Otokia. Why could not the doctor who attended the man at Otokia have travelled with him? Why was the ambulance stopped at Green Island by a policeman and sent back to Dunedin, only to be sent back again? What is wrong with the medical staff at your hospital? Everyone meeting with a accident of a trivial nature seems to die. Take the case of the accident at Allanton about six weeks ago; then that of the shunter last week—quite conscious, suffering from a minor injury, or what would have been called a minor injury during the war, as I have se'en personally cases with much more serious injuries that have bean pulled through. Have they got no up-to-date methods in your hospital? A_ man must be very bad indeed that dies in a hospital at Home, U.S.A., or on the Continent. —I am, etc., Wahinb. Otokia, November 20.