Miraculous Escape When Stage Breaks

Northern Advocate, 5 August 1949, Page 5

Miraculous Escape When Stage Breaks

CHRISTCHURCH, Fri. (P.A.). Amid screams and the crash of splintering timber, a staging holding -390 schoolchildren collapsed at the Civic Theatre this morning. One child was treated for leg injury and another hurt an ankle, neither seriously. Miraculously, there were no other casualties, though some children suffered from slight shock. The children, pupils of the Shirley, Heaton Street, Riccarton, Spreydop, St Albans, Shirley Intermediate and Burwood schools, were rehearsing for tonight’s concert in the primary school’s music festival. The musical director (Mr E. R. FieldDodgson) had just given the children the signal to start the concluding item of the rehearsal when the 12ft high wooden staging began to creak and suddenly collapsed like a concertina. FORMS CRASH DOWN Forms on which the children had been sitting crashed down among them and one boy, Ken Cooper, of Spreydon School, caught his ankle between two of the forms, though the injury was not serious. The child treated at the Christchurch Public Hospital was Marion Dazell, also a pupil of Spreydon School. The most impressive aspect of the accident was the calm behaviour of the children. As soon as the staging began to creak Mr Field-Dodgson blew a whistle and began to direct the singers from the stage, but only six of them had been brought to safety before the structure collapsed. FIRST AID First aid was being given to injured children and to some half a dozen others suffering from shock by Dr n t r-i'.'T-'f-inp with the assistance of three traffic officers, assistant-Chief • specior H. W. Birdling, Inspector N. V Dunshea and Inspector E. J. Mc.farrow.