INVERCARGILL TRAGEDY

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 76, Issue 105, 6 May 1933, Page 7

INVERCARGILL TRAGEDY

THREE LIVES BELIEVED LOST CAR SUBMERGED IN RIVER L Per Press Association. J INVERCARGILL, May 5. It is feared that three lives have been lost as a result of a motor-car crashing over a bridge into the Maka rowa River near Wallacctown at about 10.30 to-night. At midnight the three persons were imprisoned in the car, which is in ten feet of water and has the lights on. They are: Mrs. Frank Cameron Milne, wife of the manager of Wright’s Bush dairy factory; Belle Milne, aged .10, daughter, and Jean Summerville, sister-in-law of Milne, whose parents reside at Mabel Bush. Desperate efforts were being made at a very late hour by motor ambulance and the police, with the assistance of grappling irons, to extricate tiie car. Little hope is held of rescuing the sur vivors alive. The driver of the car, Mr. Milne, his chest daughter Lily, and G. Taylor, second assistant at the factory, e* < aped. I* appears that wl • n Milne was re turning to Wright’s Bush from Inver '.argill with a full car at about 10.30 to-night he failed to take the runners on the bridge over the Makarewn R ; »er. The car struck the side of the bridge and he tried to straighten up. but struck the othc’ side, the supports the bridge snap p’r.g like jn.itchyv.r d. The car wa v precipitated on to the sloping bank of the river and wa° I du up mcnicntarily but fell ba?\ into the water. M‘un< managed to jump out, as did his eld cst daughter Lily. The latter wa” cniried down the river but manage] to got out.