KILLED IN KHYBER PASS

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 45, 16 May 1927, Page 12

KILLED IN KHYBER PASS

WOMAN KNOCKED DOWN INQUEST TO-DAY With thirteen ribs broken, a lacerated lung, and other internal injuries, Christina Jane Fordyce, an elderlysingle woman, was taken to the Auckland Hospital at 7.15 p.m. on April 21, after being knocked down by a motorcar in Khyber Pass Road. At the inquest, which was held by the coroner, Mr. F. K. Hunt, S.M., this afternoon, Miss Avis Hewitt, who was a passenger in the car, told the coroner that the driver, Mr. Hatch, was not driving fast. As they were approaching her he remarked: “I wonder what this woman is going to do?" “As he spoke," said the witness, “she stepped off the footpath on to the road, hesitated for a moment, and then went on a few steps and stopped again. Mr. Hatch again blew his horn. We could have been only a few yards from her when she looked round, put her head down, and walked right in front of the car.” In his evidence Henry Hatch said, “She hesitated, and I swerved out. The woman then ran again, and ran in front of my car.” Miss Fordyce was unconscious when she was picked up and taken to the hospital, where she died four hours later from shock and internal hemorrhage, according to the medical evidence. She was very frail, the doctor told Mr. Thorne, who appeared for her relatives, and it would not require a verygreat impact to cause these injuries. There was not much brusing over the injury, and not enough to suggest that she had been hit very hard. (Proceeding.)