ACCIDENTS-AND FATALITIES

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2642, 13 December 1915, Page 6

ACCIDENTS-AND FATALITIES

| ; 1> : pAIN ACCIDENT AT PETONE INVEROAR.GILL LADY SERIOUSLY .INJURED. "A very sad accident occurred at Petone'on Saturday afternoon, resulting in Mrs. Mitchell,"widow of the late Mr. J. A. Mitchell, of Invercargillj being run down by a railway train and very seriously injured. Mrs. Mitchell, who had been staying with Mr. and Mrs. A. A. Paape for some time past, had left town to visit some friends at Petone and Lower Hutt. She was returning to the platform after visiting Petone, and was crossing the track to board a train | for Lower Hutt when the' accident ooourred. , According to statements furnished to |he police, the signalman at Petone saw Mrs. Mitchell walking along the.Down platform about 2.35 p.m. His attention was not centred upon; her until a moment or two later when he observed that she was crossing the line towards the Up platform. She reached the platform, and had actually mounted it, just as a two-engined train steamed in from the city. Whether -she missed her footing or was flurried by the approaching engine, is not known, but the 'Signalman observed than she fell back towards the line, and at the same instant was struck by the- engine, which had given two • sharp whistles. -Mrs. Mitchell was thrown up on to the platform by the train, which was promptly pulled up. Dr. Harding was summoned, and' on arrival found that Jlrs. Mitchell was unconscious, suffering from a fractured skull and a broken arm. The doctor ordered her immediate removal to the Wellington Hospital, where she now lies in a precarious condition. Up till a late hour last night she had not regained consciousness. • Mrs. Mitchell, who is 68 years of ago, is the mother of Mr. A. Mitchell. (Messrs. J..J. Niven and Co.), and Mrs. A. A- Paape. In company with Mrs. Paape she had 'planned: to leave for the south to-night, to spend the Christmas holidays in Invercargill. The Mitchell family are very widely known and highly esteemed in Southland. KNOCKED DOWN BY A 1 MOTOR-OAR. When alighting from a tramcar at the comer of Manners Street and Cuba Street early yesterday afternoon a little boy, named Robert Albany Godtsdhalk,- whose home is in "Wadestown, was knocked down by a motorcar. ' As he was not seriously injured, ho was conveyed in the car by Mr. P. Griff en to a relative's house in Piria Street. INQUEST AT OTAKI. An inquest was held at Otaki on Saturday morning in connection with the death of the railway passenger, Frederick Spenoer, who was killed through being struck by the tablet-arm on the Mnnakau Railway Station. A verdict of accidental death was returned, the Ooronor finding that no Blame was attachable to the RailwajrUeparfin'eiit. ; AN OLD SETTLER'S FATE. By Telegraph'.—Press Association, s New Plymouth, December 11. . The body of Zaccheus Wells, a very ■ old settler of the district, aged, 85, who | had been missing since _last < Monday, ' Vas found in the Henui River this 1 morning, about a mile from his house.