CROSSING ACCIDENT

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLVI, Issue 21244, 14 January 1939, Page 6

CROSSING ACCIDENT

Four Young Men Injured CONDITION OF TWO SERIOUS By Telegraph—Press Association HASTINGS, January 13. Four young men had a miraculous escape from Instant death when the car in which they were riding was struck by a goods train on the railway crossing at Otane at 8.25 to-night. Three of them were admitted to the Waipukurau Hospital, two in a very serious condition. The victims were— Ivan Constable, aged 21. head injuries, lacerations and shock; condition very serious. J. Smith, aged 20, lacerations, head injuries and shock. Condition vet/ serious. Roy Spargo, aged 21, head injuries sprained wrist and concussion; condition not serious. Rex Miller, aged 21, concussion and shock; condition not serious. Travelling west, the car was struck heavily by the. engine travelling south and after being carried 25 feet the car was thrown 15 feet from the line. Apparently Constable, who was driving, saw the oncoming train on the right and swerved abruptly across the roadway in an effort to avoid a collision, but the car which was then on the line, met the locomotive in an almost head-on crash. The car. a five-seater, was reduced to a tangled mass of wreckage. The wheels were torn off and the forepart of the vehicle severed from the chassis.