CHILD DROWNED

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 1, Issue 66, 25 September 1939, Page 5

CHILD DROWNED

WANDERS FROM HOME TRAGEDY AT NUKUHOU The sad death of a 14 months old Maori girl which clambered out of a box in which it had been placed by its mother, and wandered some little distance to f fl ll into a shallow and drown, was told before Mr G. A. Brabant, J. P. district coroner, when -the inquest was held on Friday at Whakatane into the death of More Onekawa daughter of Mr and Mrs Mack Onekawa, Nukuhou North. The evidence of the father, who k employed by Mr V. Miller, showed that he was Avorking on a wharc about half a chain from his house on Thursday when his wife called out /to him to come and look for the ttehikl. He discovered his daughter in a shallow stony creek. Efforts to revive her failed. The mother, Puti Rua, told Constable O. Rice that she placed the child in a box outside the house at one o'clock while she w T as getting the mid-day meal. She went inside the house and was absent about five minutes.. She then found the box empty and called her husband. The • child seemed to be dead when they igot it out of the water. They bathed "it in hot water but could not get it to breathe. The doctor was telephoned. but he w;as not available. The police were then notified. The child •had always been in. good health.

Constable Rice said the child must Tiavc got out of the box and walked about half* a chain ? falling down a three foot bank into the water which was six or eight inches deep. There was a small fresh bruise on the centre of the forehead, whicn -could have been caused by striking the stones on the bottom of the creek The coroner returned a verdict of drowning when the child fell into "the stream.