ACCIDENTS AND DEATHS

Evening Star, Issue 23189, 11 February 1939, Page 15

ACCIDENTS AND DEATHS

SUCCUMBED TO INJURIES. As tbe result of injuries to his neck, and back when be was involved in an accident near Uimitangi yesterday, George Seales, aged .22, of Palmerston North, died, in hospital. Scales was a passenger in a car driven by R. M. fil'Ken-, zie, the All Black vice-captain, which turned over several times. M'Kenzie was not injured, but the other passengers, C. Perrson, Miss J. Hancock, and JP. Stevens, suffered slight injuries. CHILD DROWNED IN STREAM. Falling unnoticed into the shallow Waiwhetu stream early on Thursday afternoon, Beverley Irene Allison, aged two years and a-half, daughter of Mr and Mrs B. T. Allison, 25 Norton Park avenue, Lower Hutt, was drowned. At the time of the tragedy the child was visiting her grandmother, Mrs W. J. Allison, of Rossifer avenue, Lower Hutt, and was playing at the back of the house alone when she apparently fell into the stream which runs through the property. . ■ INQUEST AT PORT CHALMERS. An inquest was held yesterday on the body of Jose da Costa, a resident of Port Chalmers for the past 60 years, who was found dead yesterday morning in the pavilion of the Port Chalmers Bowling green. Deceased was . found with a tube in his hand leading from a gas tap. Evidence of indentification was given by Gilbert R. Lawson, a nephew of the deceased, who stated that the latter had been in ill-health for some time. Dr Edgar and Arthur Phillip Pjatley gave evidence relating to the finding of the body. J. W. Patton, a brother-in-law of the deceased, stated that da Costa had seen him the previous day, and had appointed him sole executor or his will. David A. ,W. Middleton said the deceased had left his hotel at Port Chalmers about 9.30 p.m. on Thursday, and subsequently a note had been found on a table stating, “My insides are in a very bad way and complicated. Why suffer all for nothing in the end ? So, ‘good-bye.” The note was signed with the deceased’s initials, J.D.C. The coroner (Mr J. R. Bartholomew, S.M.), returned a‘verdict that death was due to asphyxiation by coal-gas poisoning self-administered while in a state of ill-health. STRUCK DOWN BY CAR. Colin Welsh, an ex-porter at th« Whakatane Public Hospital, sustained serious skull , injuries when he was struck by a car near Allendale last night, states a Whakatane Association message. He . was apparently walking near the centre of the road. One car was approaching him and another was following and one driver appeared to have been blinded by the other's lights, and failed to avoid Welsh, His condition is fairly serious.