FATAL DOSE

Evening Star, Issue 23123, 24 November 1938, Page 18

FATAL DOSE

DISABLED SOLDIER TAKES POISON TRAGEDY UNAWARES IN SICK WOMAN'S ROOM [Per United Press Association.] AUCKLAND, Nov. 23. A disabled soldier who took a fatal dose of poison and successfully dared a fi'iend to follow his example turned a call on a sick woman into a tragedy on Tuesday night. The victim, Joseph Dodson, aged 59, whose lungs were so badly injured in the war that he had since been unable to work, died on his way to hospital. The other man, Cecil Francis Hunt, aged 34, a wireworker, was admitted to hospital, but made a speedy recovery. “I had known Joe Dodson about a year,” the woman said in the course of an interview to-night. She was suffering acutely from shock. “ Sometimes he was very depressed,” she said, “I was not very well on Tuesday afternoon, and they came in to see me. I had known Hunt about a year, too. They stayed a short while, and then went out together, and at 6 o’clock or soon after they both returned. They said that they had had a few drinks at an hotel. I wanted Joe to have some tea, but he said he did not want any. He seemed very depressed then. I was still in bed. Some time later Joe went out “After a while (I do not know how long) he came back with a small brown bottle in his hand,” the woman continued. “It looked like a disinfectant bottle, and from the dust on it I thought at the time that he must have had it quite a while. He did not seem to be himself, and when Hunt asked him what was in the bottle, he gave the name of a poison. “ I didn’t believe him at first,” the woman said. “Neither did Hunt. Joe poured out some milky liquid into a wine-glass. He lifted the glass and said something about ‘Here’s fixing things,’ or ‘Here’s a go, here’s health.’ And he drank it.” The woman then told how Hunt jokingly said he did not believe the liquid was a poison, to which, she said, Dodson replied: “Well, if you think you are so tough, have a go yourself.” He proffered a glassfull to Hunt, who promptly drank it. Hunt said afterwards that very soon after he drank the liquid he began to feel dizzy. Then he saw the other man pouring out another glassful of the liquid and he realised it was poison he had drunk. He rushed at Dodson, he said, snatched the glass from his mouth and in so doing knocked him down. “ I was very frightened,” the woman continued her story. “ There was no one in the house. I was feeling ill and there wasn’t a telephone close at hand. I hardly knew what to do. I got out of bed, ran next door and asked them to call the ambulance and the police. Then I hurried back. I gave some mustard and water to Hunt and when that had taken effect, he and I tried to give some to Dodson, but he was too far gone. We couldn’t get his mouth open. The ambulance arrived and on the way to the hospital he died.”

An inquest was opened by the coroner and adjourned sine die. The coroner ordered a post-mortem examination.