PINNED UNDER TRAM.

Thames Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 17661, 12 August 1929, Page 5

PINNED UNDER TRAM.

WOMAN TERRIBLY INJURED. SENSATION IN AUCKLAND. DELAY IN EXTRICATION. (By Telegraph.—Press Association.) AUCKLAND, Aug. 12. Suffering terrible pain, with her right leg pinned under an outgoing Mount Eden tram, an elderly lady lay in Queen Street for at least 15 minutes on Saturday before she could be extricated. Tha victim of the accident was crossing Queen Street from the Victoria Street safety /.one a. few minutes after midday. Eye witnesses state that she stepped off the zone in front of a down tram, and did not notice that a tram was coming from the opposite direction. She stopped between the two sets of rails close to a centre-pole. The down tram evidently touched her and threw her against the up car. Her left leg was caught between the front wheel and the undercarriage cf the tram, the lady falling with her head down street.

As it was impossible to relieve, the pressure without the use of jacks, tliese were sent for. the nearest jack station being at the corner of Queen and Wellesley Streets. According to the statement of Transport Board officials, the accident occurred at four minutes past twelve, and the woman was extricated twelve minutes later.

Considerable indignation at the length of time taken to get the woman out of the trap was expressed by many onlookers, and one stated that at least sixteen minutes .elapsed before the victim was taken from under the tram. He was on the scene of the accident shortly after it happened, and seeing that nobody had gone for medical aid he hastened to Dr. Brockway’s surgery higher up the street and brought him. When Dr. Brockway arrived he gave the woman, who was. unconscious, a stimulant. She was taken to the Auckland Hospital by the St. John Ambulance.

Auckland trams do not carry jacks, hut the officials know where they are to he obtained. It is held by witnesses of the accident that the failure of the trams to carry jacks was responsible for a good deal of delay in the present case, and great concern was expressed on all sides. The injured woman was unaccompanied and her name is Mrs. Beamard.

There were numbers of jacks on the scene of the accident shoitly after the mishap, the first coming from Wellesley Street intersection.

Airs. Beamard is now in . the Auckland Hospital in a critical condition. She sustained , a compound fracture of the right leg and suffered severely from,shock. She is on a visit to New Zealand from England and arrived from Rotorua last Monday. A sister, Mrs. Jones, lives at Kairanga, Palmerston North.