ACCIDENTS & FATALITIES

Southland Times, Issue 18932, 4 May 1923, Page 5

ACCIDENTS & FATALITIES

SUICIDE AT PORT CHALMERS. (Per United Press Association). DUNEDIN, May 3. Yesterday at Port Chalmers William Porter was seen standing on the half-tide bank at Sawyer’s Bay inlet. As he was well out towards the navigable channel of the harbour his presence at such a place attracted' attention. When, without taking off his wearing apparel, he waded into deeper water and commenced to swim, two young men launched a boat and pulled towards him. When they reached the place he had disappeared. It is said that Le*had been depressed since the recent death of his eldest son. The body has not been found. JUMPED LN FRONT OF ENGINE. GREYMOUTH, May 3. Gustav Ericksen, timber worker, middle aged, was a victim of a train accident a mile west of Aicken’s Station on the Otira line. The 5 p.m. express stoker saw him walking ahead of the train a 100 yards distant, and whistled. The man turned and jumped on the line and lay down between the rails, the cow-catcher throwing him 30 feet into the gutter, causing severe injury to his body, from which Ericksen succumbed an hour later on a train when being conveyed to Greymouth.

DEATH OF CHILD. . WAIMATE, May 3. The inquest was opened and adjourned to permit the taking of the girl’s evidence* in connection with the death of the female baby of Agnes Young, hotel waitress. The Coroner, Mr E. D. Mosley, S.M ~ commented severely upon the action of the girl’s mother in not immediately reporting the matter to the police. Only when a doctor was called to attend the girl, nearly two days later, was the matter brought to light.