ACCIDENTS AND FATALITIES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21733, 26 August 1932, Page 5

ACCIDENTS AND FATALITIES

FRACTURE OF THE SKULL (Per United Press Association.) HAMILTON, August 25. _ Sydney Holmes, aged 58, overseer of public works at the Horahqra hydroelectric scheme, was fatally injured at the works yesterday. It is surmised that the deceased was looking over the -side of a weir when he lost his balance and fell, suffering a fractured skull. YOUNG GIRL’S DEATH UNUSUAL CIRCUMSTANCES. An inquest was held at Maungatua yesterday afternoon, before Mr A. J. Stewart, J.P., and a jury, on the body of Mavis Laura Simpson, aged 11 years, who was found dead suspended by her neck between a window and sash at Maungatua on Wednesday afternoon. The evidence disclosed that the deceased left her home on Wednesday afternoon to visit a neighbour, Mr Henry Watt, who lived about a quarter of a mile t away, stating that she would bo gone only a few Ihinutes. When she had not returned about an hour and a-half later, her sister, aged 14, with whom the deceased had been alone in the house, went in search of her. When she reached Mr Watt’s house she found no one at home, but discovered the body of her sister hanging from the neck between the window and the sash of one of the rooms. She then called her father, Mr Henry Alexander Simpson, who attempted artificial respiration, and when Dr Shaw, of Mosgiel, arrived further attempts at respiration were made, but at the end of these the doctor could only pronounce life extinct Thomas Gordon, who occupied the room into which the girl had evidently been trying to climb, said that he had left the window raised about eight inches, and supported by a tin. _ i Dr Shaw said that in his opinion the girl had pushed the window up a good deal further, and it had fallen on her neck, stunning her, as there were no marks on the wall to indicate that she had attempted to extricate herself. The position in which the body was lying over the window sill would prevfent breathing, and he considered that the girl had died from suffocation. A verdict was returned in accordance with the medical evidence.