TRAGIC AFFAIR AT TRENTHAM.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XIII, Issue 78, 16 March 1923, Page 5

TRAGIC AFFAIR AT TRENTHAM.

A TERRITORIAL KILLED. ACCIDENTAL BAYONET THRUST. Trentham. March 16. An unfortunate accident, which terminated fataJly, marred the closing stage, of the rifle meeting. A number of territorials occupying one hutment were skylarking when a mock raid was made on them from another hutment. Sham bayonet-fighting was indulged in, the bayonets being in the scabbards. While this was proceeding someone turned the lights out for a moment and when they were switched on again the men were horrified to see one of their number. Private J. S. Lean, of the Ist Battalion. Otago Infantry, staggering towards his bunk, evidently seriously injured. He wag taken to the Trentham Hospital where it was found that he had a bayonet thrust through the abdomen. After receiving attention Lean was removed to the Wellington Hospital, where h© died about five o clock. So far as is ascertainable it appears that while the scuffling was proceeding in the darkness a scabbard fell off a bayonet attached to the rifle of one man and in lunging he struck Lean. Deceased was aged 19 and had lived with his parents at Port Chalmers, where he was employed in the Union Company’s shipwright yards. The Accident Board found that Lean was injured by the bayonet in a rifle held, bj Private M. McLeod in the couse of a friendly “rag’’ and that no blame was attachable tp McLeod.