LIGHTNING FLASH
MAN AND HOUSE KILLED THUNDER LIKE RIFLE SHOT TRAGEDY ON PATEA FARM [by telegraph-—pkess association! HAWERA, Tuesday Struck by lightning while driving a can-laden milk waggon to feed out whey to pigs, Mr. Harold Valentine Bees, aged 21, second son of Mr. and Mrs. D. N. Bees, of Patea, and one of three horses in the shafts were killed instantly on the farm of Mr. E. C. Whitehead, on the Hawera side of the Patea borough boundary, just after 10 o'clock this morning. Since early morning there had been a high wind and heavy rain and occasional thunder and lightning. Mr. Bees had just returned from the Ivakaramea factory, and although the storm in Patea itself was described as not severe enough to cause undue alarm, a clap of thunder heard on the farm sounded like the crack of a rifle shot right overhead. Mr. Bees was found by his father, who was barely a chain away at the time, with the hair of his head singed and his face burned. The lightning apparently had travelled down the reins and killed the horse on the driver's right-hand side on its path to the ground. Mr. Bees was wearing rain-soaked oilskins and was riding on the right-hand side of the vehicle with the whey-filled cans about him.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/NZH19420107.2.39
Bibliographic details
New Zealand Herald, Volume 79, Issue 24166, 7 January 1942, Page 6
Word Count
218LIGHTNING FLASH New Zealand Herald, Volume 79, Issue 24166, 7 January 1942, Page 6
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