MOTOR FATALITY.

Otago Witness, Issue 3672, 29 July 1924, Page 31

MOTOR FATALITY.

YOUTH SUCCUMBS TO INJURIES. An accident of a particularly sad nature occurred in Cargill road on Wednesday. A youth named J. Pledger, residing at 91 Cannongate, was travelling into the city from St. Clair on a bicycle when he was run over by' a motor car and fatally injured. Tlie youth, who was employed by a firm of plumbers, was riding with one hand on the handle-bars and was carrying a quantity of lead piping and two tins containing 1 white lead. It appears that the deceased was cycling between the rails, and a motor car driven by Mrs Hammer was proceeding towards him on its right side. Evidently the lad tried to turn when a wheel of the bicycle caught in the tram rails and he fell in front of the car and was run over. The driver of the car continued for about 50 feet, and drove through a- picket fence, coming to a stop against the wall of a house. The car was only slightly damaged, and the driver was uninjured. INQUEST OPENED. An inquest into the circumstances surrounding the death of John Ernest Hayward Pledger, aged 17 years, who died on Wednesday afternoon following upon a collision with a motor car in Cargill road, was opened at the Hospital on Thursday. Mr J. R. Bartholomew, S.M., sitting as coroner. William Alexander Bracegirdle, railway cleaner, and cousin of the deceased, gave evidence of identification. The deceased, he said, was a healthy young man, and had been riding a bicycle for two years. He was not troubled with dizziness or anything of that nature. Dr H. S. Kenriek, house surgeon at the Dunedin Hospital, said that the deceased was admitted at 3.30 p.m. on Wednesday, and witness saw him 30 seconds after. Tlie lad was dead then. There was a wound over the right eyebrow and a fracture over the frontal bone of the skull, a wound over the right ear, another small one under 1 the right shoulder joint, and a possible dislocation of the neck, which could only be determined by a pest mortem examination. The cause of death was either cerebral injuries or a broken neck. The inquest was then adjourned sine die.