ACCIDENTS & FATALITIES.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXV, Issue 20, 22 January 1913, Page 2

ACCIDENTS & FATALITIES.

ACID INSTEAD OF BEER

(Per Press Association.)

Gisborne, January 21

To-night, after finishing work, Charles De Thierry, a bachelor, employed by the Harbour Board, proceeded to his whare on the breakwater and took a long pull at a bottle of carbolic acid mistaking it for beer. He was conveyed to the hospital in a serious condition.

At Winchester (Canterbury) on Friday evening a boy named Eric Wilks, aged nine years, and bis cousin, aged eight years, were playing in a bedroom. The younger boy picked up a gun, which was loaded, and discharged it, the charge entering Wilks’s back. Ho died almost immediately. A CLOSE CALL. Mrs Walker, wife of Mr D. Walker, a settler on the Manaia road, bad what seems to lie a marvellous escape from death on Saturday evening last, reports the Witness. It appears that while crossing a narrow culvert or planking over a stream in one of the paddocks of the farm, Mrs Walker in some manner lost her footing and fell into the water. She was alone at the time, but her cries attracted the attention of one of her children, and the little lad on learning of his mother’s danger ran off and gave the alarm. Mr Walker was on the scene in the course of a few minutes, and took what appeared to be the lifeless body of his wife out of the water and with assistance carried her to the house. Medical aid was summoned from Manaia and on the arrival of the doctor restoratives were applied and after some time evidences of returning animation showed themselves. It was an exceedingly close call, and if the rescue of the woman had been delayed

lor""' a few moments longer or skilled medical assistance had not been so prompt, death was inevitable.

Particulars of the sad accident resulting in the death of a 11-year-old girl in a barrel of whey, at a farmhouse on the Taitakau Road, on Sunday evening are given in the Waimatc Witness in the following report : It appears that a little girl, daughter of Mr and Mrs Arnett, Swiss settlers, was engaged feeding , pigs, and in the course of the work was filling a barrel witli whey. Not being sufficiently tall of stature and in order to give her more command oyer .the operation, the little one provided herself with a kerosene box on which she stood while engaged in filling the barrel. The appearances of the unfinished work in which the little girl was engaged supply these facts. The rest of the tragic tale must be left to surmise. But it is easy to imagine the strength and balance of the little worker being overtried and of her suddenly losing her equipoise and falling head foremost into the barrel. There does not appear to have been anybody about to render help, the parents being away at the beach. On returning home about 7 o’clock they found the lifeless body of the girl in the halffilled barrel of whey. Medical assistance was at once summoned, but beyond informing the bereaved parents that their daughter had been dead for some hours nothing could bo done. Constable Carroll, who went out with the doctor, informs us that an inquest will be lield to-day.