ACCIDENTS AND DEATHS

Evening Star, Issue 22252, 1 February 1936, Page 3

ACCIDENTS AND DEATHS

CHILD FALLS FROM BRIDGE. Falling from the Taringamotu traffic bridge into the Ongarue Kiver, Winnie Elliott, aged four years, was drowned yesterday, disappearing in a deep hole before her mother, who had dived in, could reach her. The little girl was the daughter of Mr Jack Elliott, a returned soldier employed on road work by the Taumarunui County Council. With her mother and a visitor from Taumarunui, she was walking across the traffic bridge near the railway station when she went to show the visitor’s little boy something floating in the river. She put her head through the wires, overbalanced, and fell into deep water 20ft below. Mrs Elliott immediately dived from the bridge and swam about 60 yards, but could not reach the child, and saw her disappear into a deep pool. Exhausted by her swim, she was unable to continue, and had to go ashore. The police were summoned from Taumarunui, and, with the assistnce of farmers and millhands,_ a search was made for the body, but it had not been found at a late hour. The Ongarue is a deep, dark river wdiich flows into the Wanganui at Taumarunui. COLLAPSED DURING OPERATION. While undergoing an operation at the Cook Hospital (Gisborne) on Thursday for the removal of tonsils and adenoids, a six-year-old boy, Gerald Eoger Littleworth, a son of Mr and Mrs L. S. Littleworth, of Waerengaokuri, collapsed. At the inquest evidence was given that the child took the anaesthetic apparently normally. The operation was commenced and one tonsil was removed. Soon afterwards the child suddenly ceased to breathe. Artificial respiration was begun, and stimulants were administered, hut his heart failed to respond. Cardiac massage was then performed, and fluids were injected into the arteries. The heart commenced beating, but soon ceased. Anotner medical witness stated that his opinion, as the result of a postmortem examination, was that death was due to an enlargement of the thymus gland, which was impossible to discover before death. A verdict was returned accordingly.