DIVE TO DEATH

Timaru Herald, Volume CXL, Issue 20283, 5 December 1935, Page 13

DIVE TO DEATH

MOTORIST'S TRAGIC END Evidence that just before the crash the door of the car flew open was given at the inquest at Letchworth recently on Mr Owen Gerrard Ormsby-Gore, aged 19, son of Mr W. G. A. OrmsbyGore, First Commissioner of Works, who died after a car accident on the Great North Road between Baldock and Stevenage, England. Lord David Cecil, an uncle, gave evidence of identification. He stated that his nephew was a student at Oxford University, and had driven a car for about two years. Police Constable Crisford told the coroner that when he was called to the scene he found a saloon car obliquely across the road, upside down. It was daylight at the time of the accident. Mr Charles Aston Lister, a passenger in a car travelling from Baldock toward London, explained that he noticed the door of Mr Ormsby-Gore’s car fly open on the right-hand side. Then a hand came out, as if to do something, and the car swerved to the right, and then swerved sudduenly to the near side of the road. It appeared to hit either a telegraph post or a supporting wire, bounced off, and made a complete somersault. “It seemed to hit something, and came off as from a springboard,” continued Mr Lister, adding that the car was travelling at about 30 m.p.h. “When the car landed,” he went on, "the driver slid out, like in a dive, on to his face. He came out head first.” Returning a verdict of “Accidental death,” ..the coroner remarked that no doubt Mr Ormsby-Gore had tried to shut the door of his car while still still travelling.