ACCIDENTS AND FATALITIES

Star (Christchurch), Issue 9306, 5 August 1908, Page 3

ACCIDENTS AND FATALITIES

♦ ; ■ .! [Per Pbess Association.] WELLINGTON, August 5. Lily Gibbons, a five-year-old girl, was ; severely burned through -her clothes igniting while she. was lighting a, gorse l^ fire at Akatarawa. The girl is in a critical condition at the hospital. GORE, August 5. A man. named Williams was injured at a railway gravel pit to-day b\ r a fall of earth. His body was bruised, liis head cut and ho sustained slight concussion of the brain, but his condition isi not serious. DEATH IN A POLICE CELL. Christchurch residents who were in" the habit of passing and re-passing the Cathedral a few months ago will have no difficulty in recognising a familiar figure in the subject of an inquest held at Wellington on. Saturday into "the circumstances connected with the death, in a cell at Mount Cook Police Station on Friday evening, of George Leer, a blind street musician, aged sixty-two years. Evidence given by the constables on duty showed that deceased was arrested for drunkenness, and locked up and blanketed at 5 p.m. on Friday. He was visited at regular intervals by the watch-house keoper, Constable Cummings, and also by Sergeant Rutledgo at 7.30 p.m. On his last visit, 8 p.m., Constable Cummings was spoken to by deceased, who was standing at the cell door. He was not sober then. At 9 p.m. deceased was found by Sergeant llutledge and Constables Cummings and Macartney lying dead on the floor of the cell, with his head a few inches from the bench. The body was then warm ; there was a wound in. the head, about two inches long; the bone was exposed, and there was a little blood on the hot water pipe and aJso on the floor underneath. There were also marks of teeth on the tongue, suggesting the theory that deceased had had a convulsive seizure. The evidence given by Dr Fyffe, "who made a post-mortem examination of the body, showed that there was a blood clot on the brain, but no j fracture of the skull. The liver was j [ alcoholic, and. the heart diseased. In ! his opinion death was duo to hemorr- j hage of the brain, caused probably by 1 au accidental fall in the police cell ; even had medical attention been at hand when deceased fell, it would have been useless. The jury returnod a verdict in accordance with the medical evidence, adding that the police were to be highly commended for their at- | tention to deceased while in, their | charge. i Inquiries made at the Hospital this morning show that Mrs M'Loy, who was knocked down by a steam tram in Colombo Street last Saturday, has not yet regained consciousness*