NERVE PATIENT'S DEATH

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23887, 15 August 1939, Page 6

NERVE PATIENT'S DEATH

DIVE THROUGH TRAIN WINDOW DESPERATE STRUGGLE WITH NURSE (From Our Own Correspondent) SYDNEY. Aug. 3. William George Matthew Maher. aged 41. a farmer, who was being brought to a Sydney hospital for a nerve complaint, dived through the window of a train, after a desperate struggle with his nurse attendant, and was killed. Maher, on entering the train at Tamworth. was put to bed in a sleeping compartment and Nurse Hewitt sat beside him throughout the journey He was quiet during the night, accord ing to Nurse Hewitt. He raised himself at the stations tc see the names, and during the early hours of the morning dropped off to sleep Conductor Schrimmer, in charge of the sleeper, called round frequently to the compartment to see that Miss Hewitt and her patient were all right. Maher became restless at about I a.m. when the train was about 30 mile's from Sydney Miss Hewitt tried to quieten him. but when he refused to be pacified she feared he might attempt something desperate. "With-' out letting Maher see what 1 was doing," she said. " I pressed the bell connected to the conductor's office All the time I was trying to soothe Maher and T was hoping I could keep him quiet until the conductor arrived Schrimmer must have been attending to duties at the other end of the train and could not hear the bell. "Suddenly Maher made a rush at the window and in one action flung it wide open. I screamed for help, and grasped him by his pyjama coat, but he half-wriggled out of it, and seemed to draw himself through the window. He was a big man and I had no hope of holding him The conductor then appeared, and although he made a grab at Maher could not prevent him from falling." Schrimmer pulled the communication cord and stopped the train. Running back along the line, the train crew found Maher's mutilated body Maher's sister and aunt were in another part of the train, and knew nothing of the tragedy until the train was stopped.