EXPERIENCES OF A FUNERAL PARTY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 13796, 8 July 1908, Page 5

EXPERIENCES OF A FUNERAL PARTY.

~;,-. «,(*_ _— ; CONFUSION IN A FOG. ~ ._ A peculiar series of accidents happened to a party returning to Orange (N.S.W.) from a funeral at Cargo recently. The party consisted of the hearse, a mourning coach, a buggy, and sulky. All went ■well for about eight miles of the trip, and then a dense mountain mist fell and mixed tip with the intense darkness, 60 that the drivers of the vehicles could not see the road. Mr. Ford, who was driving the hearse, slowed down, but the driver of the sulky, Mr. J. Norris, passed him and continued on at a fast pace. When he had travelled about a mile his horse shied and ran into a bank, throwing the two occupants out on to the road, severely shaking them; and snapping the shafts off. The horse then raced away at a gallop down the hill, and came into collision with a sulky driven by the Messrs. H. and M. Livingstone. The impact was very hard, the sulky was overturned, the axle broken, a wheel smashed, and other damage done, the Messrs. Livingstone were dashed to the ground and rendered unconscious and severely shaken, cut, and bruised, -while the horse was knocked to the ground, and so stunned as to appear dead, with a large cut in the shoulder. When Mr. Ford came up he did not'see the catastrophe until he was almost on top of the overturned sulky and horse, which completely blocked the road. He pulled up sharp before he could warn the driver of the mourning coach, which was following immediately behind, and the latter had run the pole of the vehicle through the door of the hearse and smashed the glass before he was aware of what had happened. After a time the sufferers were revived and attended to. ' '1 . * "" "