DIVED IN HIS SLEEP.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XL, Issue 12401, 14 October 1903, Page 1 (Supplement)

DIVED IN HIS SLEEP.

XTR A ORDINARY DEATH OF A SOMNAMBULIST. Perhaps the most extraordinary iaialiiy ever recorded as arising out of somnambulism was inquired into by tlie coroner at St. Ives, Cornwall, in September. The victim as a pleasant and popular lad of nineteen named John Summers, who with his brother Gerald and his father, Mr. John Summers, an ironmaster of Inglewood, had been staying for three weeks at the Porthmiuster Hotel, St. Ives. During the visit " Jack," as his brother called him, had done much diving into the ] sea, and this undoubtedly had made such an impression on him that it revived the habit, of sleep-walking which he had formed in his ; childhood. It was a dramatic story which Gerald Summers to id to the coroner's jury. "We occupied separate beds in the same, room about seventy ox eighty feet, from the ground,"' he said, "and retired as usual the previous evening. Suddenly, about two o'clock in the morning, I woke, and missing Jack from his bed called to him. I got no reply, and just at that moment I was .startled to see his figure outside the window.. He was standing on the parapet, with his bauds up and his head and shoulders inclined, as if be were taking a header into the sea. Before I could do anything I saw him going over, and then I "heard the thud on the ground." He alarmed the hotel people, and the poor fellow was picked up, suffering from severe concussion of the brain, a broken jf.w, and other severe injuries. He never woke from his fatal sleep, but died at seven o'clock on the morning of the tragedy. On the soft grass of the lawn was plainly visible the mark which was made by his head. Mr. .Total Summers said that his son had perhaps become over-excited by his daily diving. When he wa-s six years old he was addicted to a mild form of sleep-walking, but the witness had nob known it happen since. Gerald added that lie knew his brother had been dreaming' about diving. Dr. Backhouse said he had met the deceased and he was "very fit" in every way. The jury, in finding that- death was acciI dental, expressed their deep sympathy with i the family.