INQUEST OPENED

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 2, Issue 149, 19 April 1940, Page 5

INQUEST OPENED

SHOOTING ACCIDENT VICTIM TWO WITNESSES HEARD The inquest into the death of "Timoti Akuhata (August), farmer, aged 25, who met with an accident Avhile shooting at Waimana on Sunday and who subsequently died of his injuries, was opened before Mr •G. A. Brabant, J.P., district coroner. Pepei August, wife of deceased, : said she resided at Raroa Pah, Waimana. On Sunday, April 14th, at : about 4 a.m. she left Waimana to go to Te Teko to see her neice. Her ' husband was in bed when witness left for Te Teko. "I returned to Waimana late on ■ Sunday night and could not then rget to my home so stayed the night with my neice at Waimana. Early next morning my son Jackie, aged 9, came and told me that my hus* 'band had met with an accident while ■out shooting hares on Sunday and had gotshot in the leg. I saw my husband alive at the hospital but 'he was not able to me." Terahora Karaka deptKed that she was visiting her sister, Mrs Hika August, at Raroa Pah, when Jack "Tapaere informed them that Timoti had shot himself in the right leg, .'just above the ankle. He said that _t fimoti was walking up a hill towards a fence when he slipped and .the gun discharged. Witness, accompanied by Mrs Hika August and a Mrs Topa, went to the scene and found Timoti lying on the ground. The gun was on the ground about three or four chains away. Timoti told them that he had ■ -crawled along the ground away from the gun. "I asked him what happened and he said, 'Bad luck, Auntie, I slipped ;:and fell on the ground, Avhen the ;gun went off." We took him to his home and later we conveyed him to •the Public Hospital at Whakatane." The inquest was adjourned sine k tlie.