MOTOR-CAR FATALITY

New Zealand Times, Volume LIII, Issue 12622, 6 December 1926, Page 7

MOTOR-CAR FATALITY

ELDERLY MAN KILLED ACCIDENT NEAR TAURANGA. Per Press Association. TATJRANGA, v December 4. A motor-car fatality occurred about 3 o’clock this afternoon about nine miles from Tauranga, on the Tau-ranga-Waihi road. It appears that Mr Leslie Allan Cooper, employed at the borough hydro-electric station at McLaren’s falls, with hi 6 wife and two children, drove to Waikino yesterday to bring Mrs Cooper’s parents, Mr and Mrs John Odium, of Waikino, across for Christmas. The party were returning and when they reached the point stated the car apparently swerved, hit a bank and capsized. Cooper, who was driving, was thrown out through the windscreen. Mrs Cooper was also thrown clear, and the children also escaped uninjured. Mr Odium was picked up dead, and Mrs Odium was found seriously injured. A passing motor-car, driven by Mr Hugo Dickson, came upon the party, nnd found Odium and the Coopers clear of the car, but Mrs Odium and the two Cooper children were still mixed up in the wrecked hood. With the assistance of some men who arrived almost simultaneously from the other direction in a motor-lorry, the overturned car was lifted clenr of tho children, who were all right, but Mrs Odium was found to bo seriously injured, and was conveyed by Mr Dickson to the Tauranga Hospital, where she was found to be suffering from a fractured skull, broken leg. and internal injuries. Mrs Odium’s condition is critical. ' The body of Mr Odium was brought into Tauranga later.