Driver's Shock When "Ditch" Was 30 Foot Drop

Chronicle (Levin), 3 February 1949, Page 4

Driver's Shock When "Ditch" Was 30 Foot Drop

To find his car rocking precariously on the edge^ of a 30-foot drop was a sight that startled a Levin motorist when he stepped out of the vehicle on a private country: road yesterday, in the belief that1 the two side wheels had merely slithered into a ditch. A closer investigation revealed that the dif-l feren'.ial at the rear and, the bot-| tom of the sump at the front were all that was preventing the heavy , coupe car from plunging over the 1 sheer drop to the s-ream bed below. It was subsequently retrieved from its insecure position with the aid of a breakdown truck from Levin. The driver, Mr. II. R. Keys, employed by a stock and station agency, had been driving up a ' track leading to a farm house at Mangaore. He stopped the vehicle I to open a gate and had started off, in low gear when he struck a ' boulder as he rounded a bend. The i car, which was travelling about 10] m.p.h., slithered ' to the roadside and came to rest on a list of about 30 degrees, with all four wheels spinning. In the belief that he

had tou'ed a ditcn ne cnmoea ouu of the rocking vehicle. It, was then that he looked down, and received the shock of his life. Fearing that thb force of the wind would dislodge the car, Mr., Keys secured a quantity of wire, a wire strainer and an iron bar from a farmhouse ,and thus consolidated the vehicle's position until the arrival , of the breakdown truck. Except for a bent undercarriage, the car was undamaged. Mr. Keys, however, sustained a strained arm as the resu't of the steering wheel spinning round wheh the accidentj occurred. |