Accidents and Fatalities.

Hastings Standard, Issue 325, 18 May 1897, Page 2

Accidents and Fatalities.

(Per Pr ess Association.) Dunedin, May 17. At the inquest on Thomas Butchart, killed by a waggon passing over him while shunting at Otakia, a verdict of accidental death was returned, no blame being attachable to anyone. The barque Hudson, from Glasgow (•January sth), arrived this evening, after a rather dirty passage. During the voyage Captain Gosson committed suicide, and Mr Broadway, first mate, took charge, and brought her to port. On March sth, after playing a game of chess, Captain Gosson went on deck about 7.40 p.m., and the first mate, hearing the second mate speaking excitedly, went on deck, and found that the captain had jumped overboard. The ship was brought to and a boat lowered, but the crew failed to find the captain, and the voyage was resumed. Captain Broadway says he knows no reason why the skipper should have committed suicide.

A young man named William Edwards was admitted to the Auckland hospital last Tuesday night, who was suffering from a gun-shot wound in his hand. He was out shooting at Tuakau, when the gun, it is said, burst, and some of his fingers were blown off.

A lad named Dixon, employed by Dixon Bros., cordial manufacturers, of Masterton, met with a peculiar accident yesterday. He was filling soda bottles, when a bottle burst and a piece flew up, inflicting a severe cut in his throat, and narrowly escaped the severing of the windpipe. A young man named Marsh when delivering milk at Karangahake on Tuesday last had a miraculous escape from drowning. He was passing along a narrow part of the road just above the Ohinemuri River with a horse and trap, when a heavy slip of earth came down right above him, causing his horse to back suddenly over the bank into the river, carrying trap and milk cans with it. Marsh managed to jump out of the trap as it went over and he clung to a slab which had come down. The horse and cart have not been seen since.

The incident at Ivopuaranga, on the railway line from Eketahuna, on Thursday night, when a child narrowly escaped death, was startling. As the engine ran over the cattle stop, the driver noticed something near the rail, and pulling up the train as quickly as possible, when, on going back to the spot, it was found that the child, a mite of two or three years old, was wedged in the cattle stop, and that the train had passed over it. The escape from death was marvellous. Had the child lifted its head it must have been struck by the cowcatcher and killed. The little one had evidently strayed on to the line some time before the train arrived.