ACCIDENTS AND FATALITIES.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CIII, Issue 12159, 24 March 1900, Page 8

ACCIDENTS AND FATALITIES.

[Pee Press Association.] GISBORNE, March 23. At the inquest on Walter Jennings, a verdict of drowned whilst under the influence of drink, was returned. Deceased was a prohibited person. The jury added a rider that thev deemed it a matter greatly to be deplored that the present liquor laws were ineffective in preventing liquor being obtained by prohibited persons. A Native named Patapa Thnomo was drowned at Tikitiki, Waiapu River, whilst driving a bull across. His horse got into a deep hole, and he was unable to swim. A Native girl, seventeen years of age, named Tepara, Terito, made a plucky attempt to rescue him, being di’agged under several times by the drowning man, who clutched her skirts so that whilst under water she had to tear-his hands off her drees to escape. She was so exhausted that she was barely able ,to scramble. ashore. Deceased's mother, a woman aged seventy, dived to the bottom of the river and recovered the body. BLENHEIM, March' 23. A lad named Gtorg-e. Crawford, aged fourteen, was found drowned in the Wairau River, near the Maori Pa. The lad went on the river in a punt, and, it is supposed that it capsized, or he became flurried, and jumped out. No one witnessed the accident, which is the more inexplicable as the deceased was a good swimmer. An accident of a serious nature happened to Mr W. Hazlfhurst on Wednesday morning last. While riding on his bicycle over a culvert near Prebbleton, the front wheel of the machine slipped in between the timber, throwing the rider heavily on his face, cutting open the nose and the upper lip and breaking out five teeth. Mr Hazlehursb was lying unconscious when Mr Pannet, of Springston, passed by, and seeing the condition ui the aifferer, proceeded to Preb-blet-on and secured help. He then telephoned to Dr Cooke, of Lincoln. Mr Fox’: ward, with iris horse and trap, went to the scene of the accident, and finding Mr Hazlehurst still unconscious, took the sufferer home, where he was attended by Dr Cooke. He is getting on as well as can be expected. .