HASTINGS LAKE TRAGEDY

Hawera Star, Volume LIV, 8 May 1935, Page 7

HASTINGS LAKE TRAGEDY

SON’S ACCOUNT OF ACCIDENT GUN ACCIDENTALLY DISCHARGED CBy Telegraph—Press association.) HASTINGS, May 7. An inquest into the circumstances of the shooting accident - on Lake Oliiti, in which Harold Smith and his son Douglas lost their lives, was opened before the district coroner, Mr George Ebbett, J.P., this morning.

Evidence of identification was given by William Cockerill, brother-in-law of the late Mr Smith. Witness said that at the hospital he spoke to Douglas Smith, the son, when he woke from the anaesthetic. Douglas was ( then fully conscious and said that lie had been out to get a wounded duck. He got it and returned to shore, 'the stock of'his gun then being against the stern of the punt. He leant over to reach it and the next thing he knew was that there was a big bole in his stomach. He was quite certain that the gun was not cocked. His father then came rushing along. He reached for the gun and the same thing happened to him. The next thing the boy sarv was blood spurting out of his father’s shoulder. Witness stated that Harold Smith was thoroughly conversant with firearms and was very careful in his handling of them. The gun used was a double-barrelled twelve-gauge hammer gun. Witness had since examined it and found it in good order. He had never known it to go off accidentally before. The boy, witness added, would have been 18 years of age on tlie 20tli of this month and was a student at Hastings High School. He also was thoroughly conversant with the use of firearms. The inquest .was then adjourned sine die. ; ,