MOTOR SMASH

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23222, 21 June 1937, Page 10

MOTOR SMASH

CAR AND LORRY COLLIDE A TERRIFIC IMPACT FATHER AND SON KILLED (Per United Press Association) BLENHEIM, June 20. A motor smash, costing two lives —the driver of the car and his little son—occurred near Waihopai on the Blenheim-West Coast highway about 15 miles from Blenheim shortly after 5 o'clock on Saturday evening when a motor car and a heavily laden motor lorry met in a head-on collision on a small bridge. The victims of the accident were:—

FRANK DONALDSON, about 34 years of age, a motor salesman for H. R. Dix and Sons, Blenheim, and driver of the car, who was killed instantaneously. He suffered a broken neck, severe head injuries, and a smashed right arm. lAN DONALDSON, the driver's son, aged six, who died several hours later in hospital as the result of a fractured skull and jaw and spinal injuries

Mrs Donaldson received minor injuries and was severely shocked. The second child, a girl, aged five years, escaped injury. A lorry belonging to Gosling and Sons, -md driven by Frank Moreland, of Blenheim, was bringing a load of coal from near Murchison to Blenhrim. Mr Donaldson was proceeding to Wairau Valley when the vehicles met in a terriffic crash on a small one-way bridge located in a dip on the road. Mr Donaldson's car was almost off the bridge when the right front wheels of the vehicles met. A wheel of the car was torn off, and the lorry then struck the car about level with the driver's head, ripping the outside of the car, which was thrown against the side of the bridge, smashing the railings. As an indication of the force of the impact, the broken glass from the windscreen of the car was thrown over 50 feet ahead of where it came to a standstill.

Mr Donaldson was formerly a well-known racing motor cyclist. A similar accident, involving the deaths of two Wairau Valley farmers, occurred on the same road almost exactly a year ago, when a loaded lorry ripped out the side of a car.