MOTOR TRAGEDY

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21457, 3 April 1933, Page 8

MOTOR TRAGEDY

FOUR PERSONS KILLED CAR FALLS DOWN BANK CRASH ON TO ROAD DRIVER NOT INJURED PARTY FROM CABARET [nr TELEGUAPn —OWN correspondent] WELLINGTON, Sunday Four of the six occupants of a large touring car were killed when the vehicle fell over 40ft. down a steep hillside at Island Bay early this morning. One of the other passengers received serious injuries. The victims were: Killed Mr. John Henry Wood, a traveller, aged 33, of 22 Aurora Terrace. .Mrs. Marjory Wood, aged 33, wife of Mr. J. H. Wood. Miss Olga Beryl Bardebes, aged 18, of 27 Nairn Street. Mr. Ernest Joseph Dickson, a storeman, aged 22, who lived at the Waverley Private Hotel, Marion Street. Injured Miss M. Morris, of 25 Washington Avenue, Brooklyn, who is believed to have come from Auckland. She received injuries to the back, left shoulder and chest. Her condition is serious. The driver of the car, Mr. F. Hooker, a salesman, who lives at the Waverley Private Hotel, was not injured. Break Through Fences The party was returning to the city from the recently-opened Crow's Nest Cabaret, which they left shortly after midnight. The car was a seven-seater open model which Mr. Hooker had not previously driven. He had not gone far down the steep road, Milne Terrace, leading from the cabaret when the car failed to take a hairpin bend. After breaking through a guarding fence and plunging over the edge of the road, the car crashed through a second fence a short way down the declin© and was momentarily caught in scrub on the hillside. It then turned a somersault, and, after plunging further down the bank, dropped directly on a bitumen road below, passing between some telegraph wires and the almost vertical bank. The force of the impact was such that the bodywork buckled like a concertina. Residents Hear Crash Residents of Derwent Street, the lower road, were aroused by the crash and found that Mr. and Mrs. Wood and Miss Bardebes had been killed outright. All had received severe head injuries. The police and an ambulance were soon on the scene, Miss Morris and Mr. Dickson being rushed to the hospital as quickly as possible. Mr. Dickson died in the hospital at 3.30 this morning. The car was completely wrecked. News of the tragedy was circulated throughout Wellington at a remarkable speed, and this morning and throughout the afternoon crowds visited the locality.