CASUALTIES.

Otago Witness, Issue 4006, 23 December 1930, Page 35

CASUALTIES.

MOTOR CYCLE FATALITY. HAMILTON, December 19. A motor cycle crashed on the Hamil-ton-Cambridge road in the early hours of this morning while returning from a Cambridge dance. The driver of the motor cycle (Harry Arthur Hooper), aged 30, single, a "news agent at Hamilton, was killed, and one passenger in the sidecar (Thomas Kelly, aged 26, a bootmaker, of Hamilton East, was admitted to hospital with a fractured skull. His condition is serious. Miss Horne who was also in the sidecar, escaped uninjured. YOUNG WOMAN’S DEATH. TE AROHA, December 19. The adjourned inquest into the death of a young single woman named Edith Pearl Fletcher, was continued to-day before Mr J. Motles, coroner. The evidence showed that before her death the girl admitted having taken poison in a stationary motor car at 11.30 p.m. while on a visit to Te Aroha from her home in Morrinsville on the evening of December 6. Her fiance, George Brodie, stated that the deceased had been worried because her parents did not approve of her marriage, and she had previously threatened to commit suicide unless the family did not stop “ nagging ” at her on the subject. \ The coroner found that death was due to poisoning, self-administered, while suffering from intense mental depression. FATALLY CRUSHED. NAPIER, December 19. Henry Worley, an employee of Amner’s Lime Works, was fatally crushed this afternoon when working among the ruins of last Wednesday’s destructive fire. A huge wooden lime bin apparently balancing among the ruins, slipped down and fell on its side, crushing Morley. He was quickly released, but died in a few minutes.

GIRL MOTOR CYCLIST KILLED. NAPIER, December 21. A fatal accident befell an 18-year-old girl named Hone Hayward as she was riding a motor cycle along the HastingsNapier road at about 5.15 this afternoon. The accident took place where the main concrete road makes a wide sweep round the corner by the Tomoana showgrounds, and it appears that the deceased rode into a bad patch of loose shingle and, the machine becoming unmanageable, her body struck a telegraph post, inflicting terrible injuries to her head, arms and legs, from which death took place almost instantaneously. There were no eye-witnesses of the accident, but a service car driver arrived on the scene a very few moments afterwards. The deceased was a daughter of Mr L. J. Hayward, of Hastings. DEATH BY STRANGULATION. CHRISTCHURCH, December 21. Percy Chiverton, aged 51, a hairdresser, was found dead this morning at Waverley Private Hotel, where he was boarding. Evidence given at the inquest held later in the day before Mr H. A. Young, S.M., showed that during the night he had tied a strap round his neck and on to the bedpost and strangled himself. He had been in New Zealand 15 months and had worked steadily until a fortnight ago, when he lost his position. He was to appear before the Magistrate’s Court to-morrow on a maintenance charge. The coroner’s verdict was that Chiverton committed suicide by strangulation.

CLERGYMAN INJURED. INVERCARGILL, December 21. When the Rev. C. J. Tocker was motor cycling to Oreti Beach on Saturday afternoon a lorry attempted to pass him. Some loose gravel caused the lorry to skid into the motor cycle. Mr Tocker and his daughter, who was riding on the pillion, were thrown heavily. The latter escaped with bruises, but Mr Tocker had some ribs broken. FALL FROM MOVING CAR. WELLINGTON, December 21. Through falling from a moving motor car on the main road near Lower Hutt soon after midnight on Saturday a young woman was killed outright and a companion, a man, was very seriously injured. The girl was dead when found and the man was rushed in an. unconscious state to the Wellington Hospital. The girl killed was Ivy Byron, aged 18, who lived at 132 Tinakori road, Wellington. The man injured was Chandos Richmond Batkin, aged 42. The circumstances surrounding the accident were unusual, for both the gir l who was killed and her companion were sitting apparently on the turned down hood of the car, which is a three-seater. They were perched up behind the driver arid two other people who were sitting alongside him. A party of five were returning to Wellington in this fashion when the driver, Charles Batkin, of Clareville, Masterton, a brother of the man who was injured, noticed suddenly that the pair behind were no longer with them. •DRAGGED BY A HORSE. A Portobello farmer, named George Smith, aged 50 years, was admitted to the Dunedin Hospital on Tuesday afternoon suffering from injuries to his head and hands. He was harnessing a horse on his farm when the animal took fright and bolted, dragging the unfortunate man with him. The patient’s condition is not regarded as serious.

MOTOR CYCLIST INJURED. A young man, Ernest Welch, residing at Outram, was admitted to the Dunedin Hospital on Thursday afternoon, suffering from a compound fracture of the right leg. He was riding a motor cycle near the township when he collided with a motor car.