GELIGNITE EXPLOSION

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2463, 17 May 1915, Page 3

GELIGNITE EXPLOSION

MAN TERRIBLY INJURED. (By TtleEranh—Press Association.t Waihi, May 16. Tie Waimata Bush, five miles from Waihi, was the scene of a terrible accident. The victim, Charles Ludwig, had driven his cart and horse to the bush track and had gone further in on foot to fell trees. He had put a scarf in one of the trees and charged a couple of holes with gelignite on the opposite side and had lighted the attached fuses, when unexpectedly one of the charges exploded. Ludwig appears to have received tho full force or the effects of the explosion. The concussion sent him flying some yards and the splinters inflicted terrible wounds. From liis head to his feet he received injuries. Blinded and dazed he lay huddled cn tho ground with a double fracture of his right leg below tho knee, the second and third fingers and thumb of his right hand broken, deep gashes on his forehead and right cheek, and his left eye almost completely destroyed. His arms and the front part of his body were also badly bruised and cut. Recovering somewhat from the immediate effect of his wounds he crawled or shuffled along the rough broken ground till he came to his tethered horse. Here he secured a strap and getting hold of some sticks lie bound them to his broken leg, thus providing some kind of splint whioh partially _ kept the protruding splintered bone in its place. , He tlien started to shuffle backwards in the direction of open country. The accident happened about .noon and Ludwig was not found till 3 o'clock. Meanwhile he had struggled painfully out of the bush and gained the open track, having covered nt four hours a distance of a mile. The loss of blood had been enormous and tho man was in a state of collapse. He was ultimately convoyed on a bed of fern in a trap, to Waihi Hospital.