KILLED BY LIGHTNING.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLVII, Issue 30, 4 January 1927, Page 7

KILLED BY LIGHTNING.

TWO DEATHS AT SUVA. GOLF CADDY’S SUDDEN END. YOUNG GIRL DIES IN HOUSE. SUVA, Dec. 29. Suva was visited yesterday by a series of thunderstorms. The lightning was exceptionally brilliant. A boy named Jack Shepherd was killed by the first of the lightning. He acted as a caddy at the golf course and when the storm broke was waiting at the clubhouse the arrival of any players. There were others there and when rain fell the crowd went under the louvres for shelter. The boy stood under a tree, saying with a laugh that he was better off. He started to whistle “Show Me the Way' to Go Home,” when a tremendous crash made everyone hold their breath. The people under the louvres saw the lightning strike the tree and the lad seemed enshrouded in a glow of silver mist. Everything occurred in a second. He seemed to shake all over and then fell to the ■ground. When picked up he was dead, and there was a hole at his foot about 6in. deep. A minute or so after the first crash another occurred and the bolt broke off the head of a palm as if with a knife. The sound of the lightning passing was as if a hissing wind was passing overhead. Some 100yds. out from the Pacific Cable office the bolt seemed to strike the water. Later there was another thunder peal. Right on its heels a picture of her mother in the room of Miss Agnes McDonald, daughter of Mr Alec McDonald, of Newcastle, New South Wales, who was living at tho home of her aunt, Mrs A. E. Pearce, fell with a crash. Mr and Airs Pearce were startled by their niece screaming for her aunt, as if in great fright. They rushed into her room to find her gasping for breath. In a few minutes she was dead. She was employed as a clerk in the officp of the Pacific Cable Board, and was 21 years old. She had been suffering from a weak heart for some time and hud been ordered to go away for a change.