A FATAL FALL

Otago Witness, Issue 3414, 20 August 1919, Page 28

A FATAL FALL

THE INQUEST ADJOURNED. Mr H. Y. Widdowson, S.M. (sitting: as coroner), on the 12th inst., opened an inquiry concerning the death of George Stewart Bell (a son of Mr R. P. Bell, of St. Clair), who met his death on Sunday afternoon by a fall from the oliffs. The inquest could not be conoluded as Lawrence Glover (the deceased boy's companion), who was also injured, had not sufficiently recovered to attend. Richard Percy Bell (father of the deceased), stated that his son -would have been 11 years old on the day following the accident. On Sunday afternoon he and a younger brother were up at the golf links with Lawrence Glover. Witness saw him, and upon returning home himself about 5.45 p.m. expected to find deceased and Glover there also. As they were not, witness assumed they were at Mr Glover's, the boys taking tea" together frequently at the house of one or tho other parent's. About 7 p.m., becoming a little anxious, he rang up Glover's house, and found that the boys were not there either. They were not unduly alarmed till later, when they learned that another boy, who had been with the missing boys in the early afternoon, had told his mother that they had set out to go to the cliffs birdnesting. MiBell related the successive steps of the search, which was can-led on till 1.20 a.m. on Monday, and was resumed before daybreak. In tho morning he and his wife and another woman searched right along towards Black Head, anrl it was not till his return about 1 p.m. that he learned the body had been found at the foot of thf» cliffs hours before. Dr Evans, who examined the bodv niter death, and who had known deceased since birth, said he was a healthy, bricrht lad. There was injury to the head, and ho was of opinion that the baso of the skull had been fractured, and that the cause of death was shock, followinct concussion of the brain and fracture of tho base of the skulk He' must have died shortly after the fall, and would not hflve suffered nt all. Even if medical aid had been available at tho moment of the fall nothing could have been done. James M'Laren. farmer at the Cliffs. St. Clair, pave evidence as to the search of tho cliff by a party equipped with rones, and as to the finding of "the body. First

they saw the boy Glover, about 20ft or 30ft up the cliff on a small ledge. They called out and asked where George was, and he pointed down to the foot of the cliffs. There they found deceased. He was lying in a small stream, among sand and stones, perhaps Bft or 10ft above the actual bottom of the cliff. Glover, who appeared to be dazed, was carried home. The coroner adjourned the inquest to a date to be fixed, dependent on the speed of the boy Glover's recovery.