AMAZING ESCAPES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27388, 13 May 1950, Page 6

AMAZING ESCAPES

Spectacular Collision TRUCK AND TWO TRAMS PA - AUCKLAND, May 12. Eleven people were injured in a spectacular collision between a Post and Telegraph Department truck and two trams in Khyber Pass road this afternoon. The truck was reduced to a mass of tangled metal, and almost the entire length of the right-hand side of one of the trams was ripped out. The motorman’s cabin on the second tram was also severely damaged. The injured persons were: Mrs E. Fitzpatrick, fracture of right leg; A. C. Hendry, driver of the truck, cuts to right leg, ear, and face; G. A. Esther, of Epsom, shock; L. Oliver,' 1 city, injuries to left wrist: Mrs V. Fowler, of Patea, shock; Graham Fowler, aged six, cuts to head; Selwyn Fowler, aged four, bruises and.cuts to head; Mrs Mabel Baguley, abrasions to face; Mavis Rees, aged five, abrasions to face and knees; Mrs Mary Phelps, of Onehunga, cuts to head; W. J. Tee, motorman of one of the trams, injuries to leg. The accident occurred when the truck, driven by Hendry, turned into Khyber Pass road. It collided with an Onehunga-bound tram driven by H. Lind. At the same time another tram was moving up Khyber Pass road towards the city. The truck was caught between the two trams, which acted like a pair of scissors. The cabin of the truck was almost flattened and the chassis twisted about 30deg out of alignment. As the truck scraped alongside the Onehunga tram the gear on the back ripped the side of the tram out. Most of the injured people were sitting on that side of the tram when the accident occurred.

Several people had remarkable escapes from death or serious injury. Spectators marvelled that a man could be extricated alive from the hopelessly crumpled bodywork of the truck, and it appeared amazing that those sitting on the side of the tram ripped open by the truck should have escaped serious injury.