CAR RUNS OFFROAD AND DROPS 40 FEET.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18958, 2 January 1930, Page 9

CAR RUNS OFFROAD AND DROPS 40 FEET.

ACCIDENT NEAR EVANS PASS WHEN ENGINE FAILS. Seven passengers in a Durant sixseater sedan had a narrow escape from death on Monday evening. The car was nearing the top of the Sumner side of the Sumner-Lyttelton road at about 7.15 p.m. when a mishap caused it to run backwards over the edge of the road. Fortunately nobody was seriously injured, although one woman was cut about the hands. The others suffered from shock. Mr F. J. Hamilton, of Redcliffs, was motoring up Evans Pass with his son and daughter, when he met two women, one with a baby in her arms, who seemed distressed. He pulled up to see if he could give any help, and on looking over the side of the road, he was horrified to see a car lying at the bottom of the gully, and a woman stretched out on the hillside, apparently dead or seriously injured. Mr Hamilton sent his son for the police and a doctor, and while his daughter looked after the two women on the road, he climbed down to the wreck. He found that the woman was cut about the hands and was suffering badly from shock, though otherwise unhurt. Just as he reached the car a boy and a girl crawled out of the ruins. Both were uninjured. Mr Hamilton says that the whole party had a miraculous escape. The car had been climbing the rather steep grade in second gear, and on reaching the bend about 200 yards below Evans Pass, the driver, a young lady, evidently tried to change into first gear. She missed the change, the engine stalled and the x brakes having failed the car commenced to run backwards. The driver, it is said, then turned the wheel the wrong way, so that instead of running into the bank, the car smashed through the fence and shot over the side of the road. It slid about thirty feet down a very steep grade, which ended on a flat piece of land above a rocky face, over which a waterfall runs in time of rain. The car landed with its bonnet facing Sumner, and started to go forward with some of the passengers still inside. Next it dropped fifteen feet into a small pool below, in which, luckily, there was very little water. The car came to rest lying partly on its side against a rocky face. Many cars were passing at the time, and Mr Hamilton, with his daughter's assistance, brought the woman who had suffered most to the road, where a motorist took her to Lyttelton for medical attention. When the car paused for a moment on the flat piece of land, two of the women, one elderly and the other with the baby, were able to jump out. The)' had reached the road when Mr Hamilton arrived on the scene. The road where the accident hap pened has recently been widened, but there is nothing to prevent a car plunging over as did the car on Monday evening. The drop was ovei forty feet and it is remarkable that the occupants of the car got off as lightly as they did. The car was a wreck after it had finished its course, the glass was broken, the coachwork was damaged, the wheels were badly twisted, and the chassis appeared to have been strained.