ACCIDENTS AND FATALITIES.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LXXXII, Issue 10465, 1 October 1894, Page 3

ACCIDENTS AND FATALITIES .

A sad fatal accident occurred at Sydenham on Sept. 13. A lad named Orlando Merritt, son of Mr K. Merritt, of Sydenham, and who was fourteen years of age, was, with a number of other boys, playing hookey in Harper Street. He was hurt during the game, and went home complaining of great pain, in the stomach, and stated that he had been kicked by another boy. Dr Prankish was at once summoned, but the lad died within half an hour of the accident. INVEKCAEGILL, Sept, 9. A dreadful accident occurred yesterday afternoon on M’Cailum’s sawmill tramway, Seaward Bush. A locomotive was bringing out a tram laden with logs, and when rounding a curve the front wheels mounted the wooden rails, and the engine turned over in a swampy place about four feet below. The fireman, a youth of fifteen, named James Sommerville, son of a storekeeper at Appleby, was thrown under the engine, and being caught across the loins between a stump and the safety valve on the boiler, was literally boiled by the escaping steam and water. Eiordan, the driver, who was not hurt, ran off for assistance. When some men came on the scene about fifteen minutes later the boy was dead.