ACCIDENTS & FATALITIES.

Waikato Times, Volume 119, Issue 19799, 1 February 1936, Page 9

ACCIDENTS & FATALITIES.

OAPBIZE OF CANOE. BOY’S HOUR IN HARBOUR. WELLINGTON, Friday. After being an hour and a-quarter in the water through his canoe upsetting, Ernest Charles Harrison aged 16, of Lower Uutt, was rescued by a party of men in' a naval gig off Petone beach this afternoon. The boy went out in a canoe to attend to a set fishing line, but when he was a mile from the beach the strong wind and swell upset the canoe, which, however, was held in position and did not drift. The boy’s predicament was noticed, from the shore, and after some delay a naval gig was launched by five men who were about to go bathing. When the boy was reached he had not a great deal of strength left.

DEATH OF BOY. COLLAPSE UNDER ANAESTHETIC. GISBORNE, Friday. While undergoing an operation in the Cook Hospital on Thursday for tonsils and adenoids, a six-year-old boy, Gerald Roger Littleworih, a son of Mr and Mrs L. S. E. Littleworth, of Waerengaokuri. collapsed and died. At the inquest to-day evidence was given that the child took the anaesthetic apparently normally. A medical witness stated that as a result of a post-mortem examination it was found that death was due to the enlargement of a thymus gland which it was impossible to discover before death. A verdict was returned accordingly.

CHILD DROWNED. MOTHER’S EFFORT AT RESCUE. TAUMARUNUI, Friday. Falling from the Taringamutu traffic bridge Into the Ongarue River, Winnie Elliott, aged four years, was drowned this afternoon, disappearing in a deep hole before her mother, who had dived in, could reach her. The little girl was the daughter of Mr Jock Eliott, a returned soldier, employed on road work by the Taumarunui CounJy Council. With her mother and a visitor from Taumarunui she was walking across the traffic bridge near the railway station when she went to show the visitor’s little boy something floating in the river. She put her head through the wires, over-'balanced and fell into the deep water 20ft. below. Mrs Elliott Immediately dived from the bridge and swam about 50 yards, but could not reach the child and saw her disappear into a deep pool. Exhausted by her swim, the mother was unable to continue and had to go ashore. The police were 'summoned from Taumarunui and with the assistance of farmers and millhands a search was made for the body, tout it had not been found at a late hour to-night.