KILLED BY TRAIN

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22320, 18 January 1936, Page 12

KILLED BY TRAIN

COLLISION ON CROSSING PRESBYTERIAN MINISTER FOUND AMID WRECKAGE TRAGIC ACCIDENT IN OTACO [BY TELEGItAPH —PRESS ASSOCIATION] DUX ED IX. Friday A fatal accident occurred this afternoon near Benhar, 48 miles south by rail from Dunedin, when the express from the South struck a motor-car at a road crossing. and the Rev. J. B. Bickerstaff, Presbyterian minister at Stirling, who was the sole occupant of the car, was killed almost instantaneously. The train was travelling between Stirling and Benhar and had just passed through a cutting when the accident occurred. Mr. Bickerstaff had paid a parochial call and was driving back to Stirling. There was a very strong wind blowing at the time and it is probable that owing to this ill*. Bickerstaff failed to hear the approaching train. The car was apparently on the middle of the line when the engine struck it and it was carried along for some live chains before the train could be stopped. It was some minutes before the occupant could be released from the wreckage, as the whole side of the car was crushed in, and he was jammed between it and the steering wheel. He was unconscious and was suffering from injuries to the head. A nurse who was a passenger on the train rendered assistance, but death took place within a few minutes. Dr. D. R. lladcliffe was summoned from Balclutha, hut on his arrival he could only pronounce life to be extinct. The deceased, who was a middle-aged man, was married, and there is a family of two daughters and one son. The train was delayed for a little over half an hour bv the accident.