FATAL ACCIDENT AT CAPE SAUNDERS.

Dunstan Times, Issue 1086, 23 March 1883, Page 3

FATAL ACCIDENT AT CAPE SAUNDERS.

[Otago Daily Times, March 21st.) We regret to learn that, as the result of' the accident recorded yesterday, the little boy David Nelson, son of Mr Nelson, the chief liehthousekeeper at Cape Saunders, ilied at, 8 pm. on Monday It appears that the little boy, whose age was a year and 11 mouths, was playing in a cowshed about 3 p.m. on Monday with a little girl named Nellie Henovan, aged two years and eight months, a daughter of Mr Henovan, the assistant keeper, when by some unexplained means the children set the shed on fire. Mr Nelson, who was engaged outside his house, observing smoke issuing from the shed, ran into it, and found the two children in the midst of the flames. He caught them up, and as he did so the flesh peeled from the poor little creatures’ arms ; and on getting upon the grass ho tore the burning clothes off them. The little girl breathed only two or three times and then died ; while the boy, who was taken to his father’s house, was bathed iu oil to allay the pain caused by the burns. A messenger was at once sent to Portobefio, who telephoned to Mr D. Jess, of Port Chalmers, a relative of Mr Nelson, and that gentleman, with Dr Davies, was at once takin across the harbour in the Customs st' am launch to Portobcllo, where horses awaited them, and so prompt were they that in an hour and a quarter after leaving the Port they had reached the lighthouse. Dr Davies found the little sufferer apparently free from pain, and sensible, but entertained no hopes of the child’s recovery; indeed, it died about 8 o’clock on tho same evening, and was taken to I 'unedin yesterday for interment. Great sympathy is felt for Mr Ncl-on, whose wife died about two months since, leaving him with 10 children, the youngest being now 10 weeks old. The little girl will be buried at Capo Saunders, and her parents are inconsolable at her loss.