BOY IMPALED

Evening Star, Issue 22271, 24 February 1936, Page 8

BOY IMPALED

FALL ON TO SAPLING HIS HECK PIERCED [Per United Press Association.] AUCKLAND, February 23. Falling over 12ft from a wattle tree this morning, an eight-year-old boy, Patrick Hugh Keaney, of Mount Eden, was impaled on a sapling which pierced his neck. The lad was playing with other children on the property at the back of his home, and had climbed the tree when a branch broke. The other children were horrified to see their companion fall on to the sapling, which was about four feet in height.

Neighbours who were summoned by the children found the boy in a kneeling position with the small tree, which had entered the left side of his neOk, protruding for about 6in from the other side. The boy, who was semiconscious, was grasping the top of the sapling with one band. A saw was obtained, and a resident cut through the tree about three feet below the point of entry. The lad was taken to the Auckland Hospital, where a further length was cut from the sapling, leaving about 6in protruding from each side" of the boy’s neck. An operation was then performed, and it was subsequently reported that the patient’s condition was very serious.