THE LATE COACH ACCIDENT AT MALVERN.

Globe, Volume VIII, Issue 1050, 8 November 1877, Page 2

THE LATE COACH ACCIDENT AT MALVERN.

Mr S. Crorubie-Brown, who sustained dislocation of the ankle through the extraordinary accident which occurred to Redfern'a coach on Friday last, and who, we rtgret to learn, is at present laid up at the Cass, senda us the following account:— Cpon the arrival of the forenoon train from Christchurch at Sheffield, there was no sign of Cassidy's coach, and I was induced to fo on to Redf era's Hotel, Kowai Pajss, in a ermaphrodite conveyance suggestive of. q

superannuated bathing-machine, with a dash of the sedan chair about it. I was afterwards informed that the original was a tea-tray, but my informant being an attache of a rival firm, may hare been prejudiced. When we started the load consisted of H.B.M. mails, three other males, and a female inside; the driver, another man, and the writer outside. A stiff breeze was blowing, but nothing to cause any alarm. About a couple of mile 3 out the woman left us, and fortunately, as it turned out, the man sitting between me and the driver took her place. From this point the wind blew fiercely, and several times the coach seemed in danger, but it was not until we were ■within a couple of hundred yards'of Kedfern's Hotel that the blast that brought us to grief struck us. I have been in white squalls in the G-ulf of Mexico, in cyclones on the Indian Ocean, and tornadoes in Australia, but for the time it lasted I never before experienced such terrible force of wind. It swept down the Kowai Pass and on to the plains, laden with sand, gravel, branches of trees, and anything it could pick up in its progress, and carrying everything before it. When it struck the coach the horses were fairly thrown upon their haunchos, and refused tot'ace it, while the coach itself gave a series of bucks, before finally rolling over. The driver jumped clear, and I followed, but the wind caught me and threw me on the spot towards which the coach was falling. Another spring:, at the cost of a dislocated ankle, cleared me, and the next moment the coach came crash down on its side, and the body becoming separated flew up into tho air ten or fifteen feet, coming down a complete wreck. When I looked round I found my fellow passengers lying on the ground, holding on like grim death —in fact, it was impossible to stand. One man was sticking closer than a brother to a telegraph-pole, but the wind fairly forced his grasp, and he was blown down the road like a twig of straw. An out-house, of very substantial build, close by, was lifted clean over a sft. fence and blown across a largo paddock. It was with'dimculty we scrambled and crawled to Kedfern's Hotel, where I spent a most uncomfortable night, and I managed next day to get along as far as this, where I have since been detained by bad weather, but hope to get along to-morrow." Mr Crombie-Brown writes in the warmest terms of tho great kindness received by him in his crippled condition from Mr Cassidy, his fellow-passengers, and the landlords and landladies of the hotels of Porter's Pass and the Cass. .