FALL BENEATH TRAIN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20870, 12 May 1931, Page 8

FALL BENEATH TRAIN.

ELDERLY WOMAN KILLED. . INSTANTANEOUS DEATH. SHOCKING FRANKTON FATALITY. [from our own correspondent.] HAMILTON, Monday. Shocking injuries, resulting in instantaneous death, were received by au elderly woman, Mrs. Eunice Cooke, of Waimate North, Bay of Islands, when she fell beneath a moving carriage at the Frankton railway station at just after 12.30 p.m. to-day. Mrs. Cooke was travelling from Auckland to Tauranga on the Taneatua express and had left the train to enter the refreshment rooms at Frankton. It is thought that she noticed two carriages being shunted away, and under the impression that the train was leaving hurried out and attempted to board the first carriage. She lost her grip on the handrail and fell beneath the wheels of the second carriage, which passed over her head. It is the usual custom for several carriages to be taken off the Taneatua express at Frankton. Passengers are informed of this when the train reaches Ngaruawahia to enable them to move their luggage to the rear carriages. Mrs. Cooke was on her way to visit her daughter at Tauranga. She belonged to a well-known and very old-established family in the Bay of Islands. Members of the Cooko family originally settled at Waimate North after the first Church of England mission station was established there in 1831, and they conducted a flourmill which supplied the mission and the early settlers. Descendants of the family have lived in the district ever since. Mrs. Cooke's husband died about a year ago. There is an adult family.