BULLOCK IN A TREE

Otago Witness, Issue 3542, 31 January 1922, Page 20

BULLOCK IN A TREE

PECULIAR STORM EFFECTS IN NEW SOUTH WALES. (From Our Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, January 17. Some peculiar incidents occurred in connection with the storms which have been ravaging the country districts of New South Wales during the past week. On the banks of the Wollondilly, near Rossiville, Mr D. Macdonald had some cattle grazing. The willows along the river afforded excellent, shelter. The terrific wind swept along the valley and bent, the big willows double. A bullock was feeding directly under the fork of a tall tree.when the hurricane burst. The tree, writhing almost double, whirled downward, the forked branch gripping the ox from neck to flunk and closing tn the doomed animal like a living vice. To an onlooker it seemed as if the tree had bent and picked the animal off the ground. One instant the bullock w-as feeding; the next he was swinging in mid-air, the life crushed out of him by the forked branch. After the wind had dropped the carcase was so tightly held that the branch had to be sawn through to release it. In Goulburn a terrific flash of lightning struck a sewer vent, smashing concrete splinters from it. and scattering them over the root's of adjoining houses. Mr James Steele, who was crossing the yard close by. was struck by the current, thrown to the ground, and badly shaken. He is still in bed, but is recovering. Next door the lightning hit a verandah post., a man standing by it being hurled against his own back door. At the same instant his wife, carrying a dish of peas, was emerging from the kitchen. The shock pitched the dish from her hands and distributed the peas around the verandah, but she w-as herself unhurt. Many electric light wires were fused and motors put out of action.