FATAL ACCIDENTS

Greymouth Evening Star, 16 June 1936, Page 7

FATAL ACCIDENTS

CRASH AFTER FUNERAL CAR’S BODY RIPPED OFF [per press association.] BLENHEIM, June 16. Tragedy overtook a party of six Wairau Valley farmers, last evening, when they were returning home from attending a funeral in Blenheim. When within a couple of miles of the Wairau Valley township, on a straight wide stretch of highway, the car, driven by George Gordon Davidson, collided with a laden timber lorry, with the result that Leonard Leslie Hart, married, with one child, was killed instantaneosuy, while Davidson himself is not expected to live. Both received fearful head injuries when the body of the car, a big sedan, was practically ripped off the chassis. Evidently, the bodywork—-struck the men on their heads, with shocking consequences.

The four other occupants had a marvellous escape, in the circumstances, suffering only severe shock. The accident occurred just after dark. It can only be assumed that the driver of the ill-fated car miscalculated the margin to pass the lorry, with the result that the windscreen hit the timber alongside the cab of the lorry driver, who is named Mervyn Prentice.

CYCLIST KILLED. HAMILTON, June 16. Fatal injuries were received by Richard Henry Lockyer, of Hinuera, as the result of a collision with a motor-lorry and trailer,, driven by Joseph Tebes, of Frankton. Deceased was riding a bicycle towards Hinuera. when he was knocked down near the Matamata racecourse. He died before the arrival of a doctor. CRUSHED BY EARTH. OAMARU, June 15. While working for the Public Works Department at an excavation on the main highway for a subway at the Deborah level crossing, Robert Alfred Waddington was crushed by a fall of earth, death being practically instantaneous. He was 36 years of age, and married, with three children. He lived at Weston. * FALL FROM TREE. PALMERSTON NORTH, June 15Richard Harrison, married, .31 years of age, employed as a butcher, who was severely injured in a fall from a tree at Pahiatua, on Thursday, died in hospital this morning.

YOUTH’S DEATH.

INVERCARGILL, June 15.

A youth named Gordon Horneiss Bradshaw, aged 17, whose parents live in Dunedin, was found in a dying condition last evening. He was employed as a farm labourer for R. W. Williams, of Awarua Plains. He was heard groaning in his room. A doctor was summoned, but before he arrived the youth died.

EXPLOSIVE INJURES BOY

BLENHEIM, June 16

Serious burns to the head, shoulders and chest, involving the eyes, were sustained by Donald Gill, 12, son of Richard Gill, contractor, when a tin thought to contain explosive went off in his hand. His parents had just (occupied the dwelling. The lad found the tin in a shed, and struck it, with disastrous results. He was admitted to hospital.

PALL DOWN WELL

NEW PLYMOUTH, June 15

Falling seventy feet down a well that he was digging at Huinga, near Stratford, to-day, J. J. Scheuber suffered a fractured left leg, an injury to an eye, and severe shock. His condition was reported by Stratford Hospital to-night to be serious. Scheuber was about to descend the well on a rope operated by a windlass. His head had not disappeared below the ground level when the windlass broke, and Scheuber crashed the full seventy feet to the bottom of the shaft.

Help was immediately forthcoming, but the first attempt to raise Scheuber to the surface by the attachment of straps to the rope was without success. Further help was summoned, but it was not till an hour after his fall that the injured man, suffering intense agony in shallow water in the well, was brought to ground level, and hurried to the hospital.