STRUCK DEAD

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21404, 31 January 1933, Page 6

STRUCK DEAD

FIERCE LIGHTNING / YOUNG MAN KILLED SEVERAL PERSONS PARALYSED / / > 'A young man was struck dead by lightning at Young, New South Wales, on the morning of January 23. Another young man was seriously injured, while the lightning temporarily paralysed two women, two other men, and a child. Hed'ey Eldridge, aged 20, youngest son -of Mr. and Mrs. W. Eldridge, was killed. Those sent tc. hqspital were: —Max Bates, aged 19, suffering. from temporary paralysis and shock; Joseph J. Bales, Mrs. Bates, and Miss Daphne Bates, aged 16, and a younger sister, Mr. Roy Cook, of Demondrillc Street, and Roy Cassin, aged 16, suffering from shock.

A few minutes after 11 o'clock, there •was a terrific clap of thunder. People standing near the Court House felt the shock and saw a bolt of lightning above the Methodist Chufch. So vivid was the lightning and so shattering the thunder clap, that instinctively everybody felt that something had been hit ntar by. In the yard of a cottage occupied by Mrs. Bates and family, one man lay apparently dead under a pepper tree. Two others were reeling round the yard, another youth lay writhing on the ground, his legs paralysed, and Mrs. Bates, her 16-year-old daughter Daphne, and a younger child were lying on the ground numb with shock, and hardly able to move. Doctors', alter examination of EldTidge, pronounced life extinct. At the timfe of the thunderclap, and for some time previously, Mr. Bates, assisted by his son, Eldridge, and Roy Cook, was carrying out some repairs to an old" utility ,car. They were gathered round the car, which was about five yards from the base of a large pepper tree, handling spare parts and tools, and near by were Mrs. Bates and her two daughters, watching operations.

Suddenly there "was a bliuding flash, and Mr. Bates was burled about five yards away into a small pool of water. Cook was picked up 20 feet away, and the remainder of the/party were hurled in all directions.

The women first screamed hysterically, but for some time they were unable to move, as tlieir legs were paralysed. A boy named Roy Cassin, who was standing a short distance from the car, was knocked down and suffered from shock.