Casualties.

Hokitika Guardian, 20 February 1922, Page 4

Casualties.

FATAL FALL FROM MOTOR-CAR

CHRISTCHURCH, Feb. 18

An inquest concerning the death of Elizabeth Henrietta McHale, a married woman of Chorlt.on, Banks Peninsula, who died in the Christchurch Hospital on .Wednesday afternoon from injuries caused by. falling from a motor-car, was held before the Coroner, Mr Wyvern AYilson, yesterday. William McHale, husband of deceased, gave evidence of identification. Dr L; M. King,, house-surgeon at the Christchurch• Hospital, said Mrs McHale had been admitted to the hospital, suffering from a fractured skull. Death was due to haemorrhage into the skull, causing compression of the vital centres. i Robert Milliard Spiers, of Fitzgerald avenue, said that on Tuesday afternoon he had taken Mrs McHale and her niece for a run in his car. Deceased was sitting in the back seat and her niece was sitting beside him. Mrs McHale had insisted that her niece should have an overcoat to put over her knees. At the time, witness was' driving at about 17 or 18 miles per hour, and as he moved the car into the middle of tTie road, lie heard a crash, and saw deceased lying in a heap on the road. She had been removed to the hospital as soon as possible, and had remained unconscious all the time. Witness thought that when she rose to put the coat on the front seat, she overbalanced and fell out. Tiie car, a Ford, was not very deep in the body. Beryl Constance McHale, niece of deceased, corroborated the evidence of the previous witness. At the time of the accident she had received a blow on the head. The Coroner said that it was an unfortunate accident and there was

nothing to show that anyone was to blame fot* it in the slightest. Deceased was travelling in a Ford car at a moderate rate of speed, and in her anxiety to give her younger companion, who was wearing light summer clot-lies, a coat to wear, she overbalanced, arid fell heavily to the road. He found, in accordance with the medical testimony, that she died on February 15tlr, at 1.30 p.m., from a fracture of the base of the skull, caused by falling out of a motor-ear driven by Robert Milliard Spiers, on Ferry road.