WOMAN KILLED.

Press, Volume LXVII, Issue 20181, 9 March 1931, Page 11

WOMAN KILLED.

MISHAP AT PRIVATE HOSPITAL. An unusual accident occurred at St. George's Hospital early last evening and resulted in the death of Mrs Ivy Esther Smith, the wife of Mr Sidney Smith, of 23 Cross street, Sydenham. Mrs Smith had attended Divine service in the chapel on the top floor and was being taken to her ward on a lower floor by the lift. The bed on which she was lying had been partly removed from the lift when the latter was in some unaccountable manner set in upward motion, with a result that the bed was tipped forward, dragged back into the lift, and Mrs Smith thrown out and down the lift well. She was seriously injured and died 8.5 p.m., almost two hours after the accident. The lift continued its career until stopped through the bed jamming between the well and the next floor, although a sister inside the lift, who had been in charge of Mrs Smith, made every attempt to check it. The only theory that can be advanced for the lift starting is that portion of the bed which fitted the cage tightly, touched the button. This is discounted by the fact that the sister inside was unable to stop it in the ordinary way, Mrs Smith had been an inmate of the hospital for just over a year, suffering from bone trouble, but she was approaching convalescence.