THREE SERIOUSLY HURT

Hawera Star, Volume LIV, 17 June 1935, Page 5

THREE SERIOUSLY HURT

Motor Car Violently Collides With a Lorry

ACCIDENT NEAR AUCKLAND ONE VEHICLE CATCHES FIRE # (By Telegraph—Press Association.) AUCKLAND, To-day.

A man and two women were discovered gravely injured soon after 4 o’clock tliis morning on the Great South Road. They were Miss Florence Wigmore, aged 19, who was removed to hospital suffering from a fractured skull, and Miss Judy Blake, aged 19, who was suffering from concussion, and a man named George Whitcliouse, aged 29, of Palmerston North, employed as an able seaman on the cruiser Diomede, who also had a fractured skull, and his condition is grave.

The women belong to Auckland, and were in a motor-car which came into violent collision with a motor lorry, which caught tire. The collision occurred on a level stretch of concrete near Takanini. The car, which was a light one, was wrecked, and the three-ton truck caught fire and was destroyed. A resident nearby' who heard the crash said that immediately afterwards the driver of the truck came to his house and asked for help. When she reached the scene the driver of the car was lyings beside- the road covered by a rug. His clothes had been on lire, but the truck driver had extinguished the dames.

One unconscious girl was lying beside the road and. another girl was sitting on the side of a ditch talking incoherently. This girl said there was a second man in tho car, but, although a search was made, no trace of him could be found. The girl said the driver of the car had taken her and her friend to Taranaki to exchange a motor -car. The exchange had been made at Mokau iand they were returning in a leisurely -way when the collision occurred.

Another resident said the driver of the car was thrown on to the middle of the road, and the door of the car was lying on top of him. There was a burning stream of petrol from the man to' the. truck, which was about fifty yards away. A spare tank of petrol had been ripped open, and the contents had leaked from the point of impact to where tho trgck had stopped. A spark from the car had ignited the petrol, and the fire ran along the road to the truck, which was loaded with furniture and merchandise, and the truck and Mad were soon in flames.