CAR PLUNGES INTO RIVER

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 134, 2 March 1921, Page 4

CAR PLUNGES INTO RIVER

ONE PASSENGER KILLED A MYSTIFYING DISAPPEARANCE From Our Own Correspondent! Palmerston North, March 1. Yesterday afternoon Messrs. Goldingham and Becket missed a three-seater Ford car from outside their premises in King Street, and nothing more was heard of it until the local police received notice of a fatal accident which had occurved in the Manawatu Gorge at about 8.30 last night. The car, which at the time of the accident is said to have contained four persons, went over the bank into the Manawatu River at a very bad point known as the Devil’s Elbow, where there is a considerable drop into the river below.

One of the occupants, Clarence Davidson. aged about twenty-seven years, whose wife is said to reside in Woodville, was fatally injured. Percy Smythe, plumber, of Pal in erston North, was slightly injured. Another occupant was Reginald Burnham, who had a shoulder dislocated. It is said that there was a fourth man in the car, but so far he has not beep traced, and whether he was drowned, or has wandered away, the police at present do not know. The car is lying in deep water. The police turned it over, and found no body underneath, and so it is surmised that the missing man was thrown into the water arid carried away by the current. Davidson was found at the bottom of the bank alongside the water, with severe injuries' to his head, and he died, in the hospital this morning without recovering consciousness. When the car went over the bank it evidently rolled down, its fall being broken by some shrubs growing there. Smythe, in a statement made to-day, says that he was picked up by the party outside the Princess Hotel, Terrace End, at about six o’clock last night, and invited to go for a Tide, although he did not know any of them. That made four in a three-seater car. The party motored to Ashhurst, and afterwards decided to go on to Woodville. Just at Devils Elbow, in the Gorge, something appeared to go wrong with the steering gear, and the car plunged over the bank. The car fell hetuj. first, and on striking the rocks at the bottom turned over into the river, throwing the occupants out. On recovering himself, he assisted Burnham out of the water, and then climbed up to the road to look for assistance Mr. Ritchie, of Woodville, who came along, went'into Ashhurst, and informed the police, who had the injured men conveyed to the hospital. The river is still being searched for the body of the missing man.