Hotel Receptionist Found Unconscious In Her Bedroom

Wanganui Chronicle, 3 June 1950, Page 6

Hotel Receptionist Found Unconscious In Her Bedroom

WELLINGTON, Last Night (P.A.) —How Julia O’Kane, aged 58, hotel receptionist, suffered a haemorrhage of the brain, became unconscious in her boarding-house room and was not discovered until eight days' later, was described by witnesses in the Coroner’s Court at Wellington today. The Coroner, Mr. W. G. L. Mellish, found that Julia O’Kane, known as Judith Kane, died on May 17 at Wellington Hospital of hyper-pneumonia and a rupture of a duodenal ulcer following a haemorrhage of the brain. Mr. Mellish paid tribute to deceased’s employer, Mrs. E. R. Ward, of Wakefield Hotel, who traced down the missing woman to her room in Roxburgh Street and immediately called the police. Constable R. G. Irving said he entered the room at Roxburgh Street and found O’Kane unconscious, half sitting, half lying on the edge of her bed. Dr. J. O. Mercer, Wellington Hospital pathologist, said he considered that O’Kane had been in a coma since shortly after she was last seen > on May 8. He did not think she would have recovered even if nursed from the time of her stroke.