ACCIDENTS. &c.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LXVII, Issue 8148, 20 April 1887, Page 3 (Supplement)

ACCIDENTS. &c.

•On March 24, Mr Herbert Gulliver,, of Rangiora, bad a spill from his bicycle, which resulted in the dislocation of his left elbow severe enough to prevent any likelihood of his being able to use his arm for some weeks to come. He sustained a precisely similar accident about two years ago, which laid him up for several months. ;Dr Gordon has the case in hand. At about nine o’clock in the evening another bicycle accident occurred at Rangiora, which was also attended with serious results. It appears that a young man named Charles Evans was riding on the footpath in A ictoria street south, and, being without a Tamp, ran into an elderly labouring man named Robert Fraser, belonging to the town, doing him injury which is likely to lay him up for two or three weeks. The •accident was rendered doubly unfortunate by the fact that the man, who has a wife and young family dependent upon him, was just returning from entering into an engagement for a month’s work, after having been out of regular employmentfor some time. Dr Downes rendered the necessary medical attention. The bicyclist escaped with a shaking, but the damages he will be called upon to pay will no doubt induce him to keep as near the centre of the highway as possible when taking cycling exercise in future. An accident occurred at Messrs Boyd and Heir's wood-working mills, Rangiora, between 12 and 1 o clock on Saturday, whereby one of the workmen named James Grimwood lost four fingers from his left hand. It appears that he was doing some work for himself during the dinner hour, and in using one of the circular saws had his hand carried against the teeth through the piece of woed he was cutting shifting back suddenly. He was at once taken to I)i' Downes’ surgery, and on an examination of the injuries being made, it was found necessary to amputate part of the hand. The operation was successfully performed by Drs Downes and Gordon, but the man on Saturday evening was in a very low condition from the shock to the system. The sufferer is a married man, with a family of four or five dependent upon him. An inquest was held at Mr Keane’s hotel, Springfield, on Saturday, before -G. Rutherford, Esq., acting-Coroner, and a jury of six, of whom J. Frazer was •chosen foreman, upon the body of the in fant son, aged one year and nine months, of Robert Kent, railway guard. After the jury had viewed the body and visited the scene of the accident, the following witnesses were called :—Mary Susanah Kent, the mother of the deceased, deposed that at about a quarter to eleven on March 31. she went to the water-race, which runs through the paddock adjoining the house, for some water. She was met on her return and accompanied by her children to the gate, and entered the house after telling them to come inside and close the gate. Did not notice whether they did so or not. About 15 minutes after, while engaged within the house, witness heard her daughter screaming, and running out saw her daughter Ethel near the gate. She told witness that Earnest was in the race. Ran up and down the banks in search of him, but could’ not find him. The body was brought home in about half-an-hour by her husband. After taking other evidence, a verdict of “ Accidentally drowned ” was returned. FATAL ACCIDENT AT RANGIORi. A fatality of a very sad nature occurred at Rangiora on Sunday morning. A young man named William Webber, aged about 24, eldest son of Mr John Webber, of the Temperance Boarding House, losing his life. The particulars of the affair are as follow ; —Webber undertook to exercise the race horse Loiterer, which arrived by the train on Saturday evening for the races to-day, and for that purpose took it to the old racecourse between six and seven o’clock in the morning. Mr Lawson Ridley, who was at the course, looking on, states that after Webber had sent the horse round once at three-quarter speed he seemed to lose control, and the animal, leaving the track, made for the gate, and thence to the road, but did not increase its pace or appear excited, as though running away. A short distance from the gate the rider, after swaying in the saddle for a few moments, fell to the road in an apparently helpless manner. Mr Ridley immediately rode to the snot, and finding him insensible and bleeding from the head, knocked up the occupants of a house close by and had him conveyed inside. Dr Gordon was immediately sent for, and until his arrival means were used for the relief of the sufferer. The doctor lout no time in attending, but after making an examination could only pronounce the case a hopeless one, the base of the skull being badly broken. The injured man lingered for about half an hour and then died without regaining consciousness. Deceased, i.t appears, was subject to epileptic fits, and there is not much doubt from the peculiar manner in which he was riding when the horse left the track that he was seized with one and became helpless. He was a good horseman and rode well at the outset, and what would tend to prove that the horse was not to blame for the accident was the fact of it allowing itself to be caught without trouble by a little boy just after deceased fell. Much sympathy is felt by the townspeople for the father and mother of the young man An inquest was held on April 5, when the jury returned a verdict that death resulted from fracture of the skull, accidentally caused. AN ACCIDENT AT SEA. INVERCARGILL, April 4. On Friday night, two oystermen, named Thomas Connor and Thomas Morgan left the Bluff wharf in a boat to proceed to the Alarm, moored some distance away, on which cutter they were employed. Both were intoxicated, and as they did not reach the cutter, and no trace of them could be found next day, it was surmised they had been drowned, or that the boat had been blown to sea. On Saturday night the constable at Wyndham received the following telegram from C. R. Brunton, near whose station the Tararua was wrecked in April, 1881; — <f A boat belonging to the cutter Alarm came ashore at Waipapa Point, with one of the men, Thomas Morgan, on board. The other man has been drowned.” Connor, the man who has perished, was about tbirty-four years of age, and arrived at the Bluff in the barque Comadre from London. Morgan, aged about twenty-five years, was engaged for some time as cook on board Bradshaw and East’s lighter, but recently left to go oyatering on the Alarm.