SERIOUS INJURY ESCAPED

Taranaki Daily News, 19 July 1933, Page 6

SERIOUS INJURY ESCAPED

CAR ROLLS DOWN HIGH BANK 30 FEET FALL FROM THE ROADWAY. TWO OCCUPANTS SCARCELY HURT. TYRE BURSTS ON JUNCTION ROAD. Falling and rolling down a bank nearly 30 feet high on the side of Junction Road, a small car came to rest upside down with scarcely any injury to its occupants on Monday night. ,It was a remarkable escape. The occupants of the car were Mr. and Mrs. M. J. Armstrong, New Plymouth. Though Mrs. Armstrong suffered shock and several bruises they were not serious, while Mr. Armstrong came off unscathed. Mr. Armstrong was returning to New Plymouth from Hawera and had just passed Kent Road when a back tyre burst. This rendered the car very difficult to control, and it skidded for several yards along the side of the road, the muddy edge of which made steering all the harder. In spite of his efforts to bring the car back toward the middle of the road, Mr. Armstrong was unable to do so and it slipped over the grass edge. The slope from the road edge was rather sudden and the car, falling sideways, rolled over twice before it was brought up by the level bottom, between 25 and 30 feet below the road.

There, though they were both dazed and the car was resting on its top, Mr. and Mrs. Armstrong were able to struggle out and make their way up to the road, where they were found a little later by Mr. A. Dunlop, who was returning to New Plymouth and who took them home. '•' •

General damage was done to the car, the body of which was rather badly dented and scarred. Practically all the windows were broken, blit luckily neither of the occupants was touched by any of the flying glass. Though the bodywork of the vehicle suffered it was to its strength and. resistance that Mr. and Mrs. Armstrong owed their escape from possible serious injury.