COMMENDED BY CORONER

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22971, 24 February 1938, Page 16

COMMENDED BY CORONER

TAXI-DRIVER'S ACTION ASSISTING INJURED MAN ,A taxi-driver's prompt action in assisting an injured man was commended by Mr. F. K. Hunt, S.M., coroner, at the inquest yesterday into tho death of Robert Neil Anderson, aged 59, master mariner, of 45 Henley Road, Mount Eden, who died in tho Auckland Hospital on January 22. The driver, Thomas Benjamin Davis, said he was driving down Wakefield Street at 7.30 p.m. on January 20, when he saw deceased lying in the gutter. Stopping his car, witness got out to move him to a safer place. However, he found the man bleeding from the head, and obviously seriously hurt. Witness telephoned immediately for an ambulance. There was no sign that doceased had been drinking. "It was very good of you to take the steps you did," said the coroner to the witness. "Some people would havo passed by and paid no attention." Mrs. Anderson, widow of deceased, said her husband had left home to walk to town. He was a heavily-built man, and had been in ill-health, apparently suffering from high blood pressure, but he had not been treated by' a doctor. He walked very slowly. Mrs. Annie Louisa Price said she saw deceased fall, and then the taxi come along and stop beside him. In accordance with medical evidence, tho coroner gave a verdict that death was due to a fracture of the skull, laceration of the brain and a subdural hemorrhage, remarking that tho fall was probably due to the deceased s state of health.