CROSSING SMASH

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23057, 7 December 1936, Page 10

CROSSING SMASH

TRAIN AND CAR COLLIDE WOMAN MOTORIST KILLED HUSBAND AND CHILDREN ESCAPE (Per United Press Association) PALMERSTON N., Dec. 6. Mrs Miriam Emma Pawson, aged about 42, living at Ruamati, near Dannevirke, was killed when the car in which she and her husband and two children were travelling was struck by a Sunday excursion train at 1 p.m. to-day at the West street crossing. The family were on their way to Foxton beach.

The impact turned the car around and threw it into a fence alongside the line. The damage to the motor car was extensive.

The husband, who was driving, was thrown out and was picked up lying alongside the rails, but beyond abrasions to the scalp and limbs was uninjured. The baby girl, Margaret, aged two years and a-half, was lifted out of the wrecked car unhurt. The boy, Bruce, aged* five, had a cut on the head and one on the finger and was also lifted out of the car. The mother was half in and half out of the car and was dead when eyewitnesses rushed to the scene to render assistance. A remarkable feature of the accident was that no fewer than four persons in the vicinity watched and waited for an accident to happen, having had some sort of presentiment. The warning bells were ringing and the driver had an uninterrupted view of the train.