THE COACH ACCIDENT AT KAKANUI.

Evening Star, Volume VII, Issue 2065, 17 December 1869, Page 2

THE COACH ACCIDENT AT KAKANUI.

We have been enabled to collect the subjoined items of intelligence x-especting this sad affair. We learn from telegram, that the body of Miss Ross has been recovered, and an inquest on the bodys was to be held at Kakanui Hotel, this afternoon, at half-past three o’clock. The friends of the late Mr Paterson have made arrangements fqr the body t° brought from Oamarix to Dunedin for intcpment. The body is expected to arrive by steamer to-morrow, and will be taken to the Club. The funeral is appointed to take place on u 'day next, leaving the Club at three o’clock. It is expected that the body of Miss Ross also will be brought to town for interment in the Dunedin cemetry. Wo are indebted to Mr Peyman for a few particulars of the incidents of this sad affair, as related to him in a letter from Mr Walker, contractor, one of the passengers. It appears that almost as soon as the leading horses entered the stream they were obliged to swim. The passengers were—Mr Paterson on the box with the driver, four young men and a lady inside with himself. One of the passengers was a German traveller. On the

coach entering the stream, the water entered. The young men either became frightened and tried to climb on the roof or wished to get out of the way of the water, and the centre of gravity of the coach being thus raised too high, it turned over, and the top part separated from the lower. Mr Walker and the lady clung to the lower part of the coach. He describes her screams as dreadful during tire time she retained her hold. He was unable to render her any assistance, and suddenly there was a hush. She had gone. He held on for about two hours and a half, during which time people on the shore were endeavoring to throw a rope to him. At length he managed to grasp it and fasten it round his body, when he was dragged through the current nearly exhausted. He has now nearly recovered from the effects of the accident. He does not recollect seeing Mr Paterson, who appears to have disappeared almost immediately. Although through being almost necessarily absorbed in his own peril to observe what occurred to the other passengers, he noticed the driver gallantly enter the river on horseback, apparently to rescue some from drowning. The mails are lost. It is supposed there were fourteen or fifteen feet of water, and that the sudden fresh of the river bad washed away the gravelly bed where previously there was a safe ford.