GOES OVER BANK.

Waikato Times, Volume 113, Issue 18944, 15 May 1933, Page 7

GOES OVER BANK.

DROP OF 250 FEET.

DRIVER CRITICALLY INJURED

TWO WOMEN SLIGHTLY HURT.

NAPIER, Sunday

After plunging in a sensational manner over a precipitous bank yesterday afternoon a motor-car conveying an Auckland party came to rest 250 ft. below the Napier-Taupo Road. The driver, James Porter, aged 19, of Paerata, was critically injured. The two other occupants, Mrs. Porter, the driver’s mother, and Mrs. Martha Cooper, of Grey Lynn, reoeived abrasions 'and shock. The car was wrecked. No one saw the accident, which occurred shortly after five o’clock. Mrs. Porter and Mrs. Cooper remembered nothing until they recovered from the initial shock and found themselves lying on the bank about 150 ft. below the roadway. Mr. Porter, who also had been thrown clear of the car, was seen to be lying down the bank. With great difficulty the women made their way to him and found that he was unconscious. Shortly afterwards two cars came along. The women were driven to the

Tarawera Hotel, where they were cared for, and additional assistance %-was obtained to get the injured youth up the bank.

An Arduous Task.

“I don’t know how we managed it, but we Just threw our hearts into it and did it,” said one of the rescue party later. Clambering and clutching their way up the fern-covered bank, the men had to take every care of the injured man in the process, and their progress was painful and arduous.

Mr. Porter is in a critical condition. Besides receiving, what is thought to be a fracture of the base of the skull, he had a cut over the right eye and both his legs were gashed. . Mrs. Porter and Mrs. Cooper are not seriously hurt.