NARROW ESCAPE

Hokitika Guardian, 21 December 1933, Page 8

NARROW ESCAPE

WAGGON CRASHES INTO ROOM

A SLEEPING BOY UNHURT

SYDNEY,, December 17.

Gordon Bqbsy, aged about 14, of Botany, had'a remarkable escape from being 1 crushed to death late ut night when a heavy motor waggon crashed through the. front wall of Iris' bedroom, smashed the bed on which lie was sleeping and crushed it against the opposite wall, which brought it to a standstill. The bey was apparently hurled from the bed when the waggon struck it. His only injury was a small cut on the side of-fthie nose.'- The house was by the crash; doors and windows being out of plumb. Constable /W- Clark, a motor-cyclist, was on patrol duty when he saw a waggon without lights. He called to the driver to stop. The man replied by stepping on the accelerator and turning the waggon into another street. The constable drew level and again called on the driver to stop. The driver continued to increase his speed, until lie was travelling at about 60 miles an hour.

The waggon sped on the road for several streets, the motor-cyclist being able only to keep it in sight. Disaster came at a sharp turn in Botany Road. The waggon' failed to negotiate the turn. It jumped tlie near-side kerb and collided with a pole supporting tramway wires. It swerved sharply to the opposit side of the road,, mounted the footpath, tore down a fence and crashed into the bedroom of the cottage, a double-fronted weatherboard structure.

Three men who were in the' waggon forced their way out of tlie wreckage and disappeared. Subsequently three men were charged at Redfern police station with having illegally used a motor waggon, with having driven without a license and with having driven in a manner dangerous to the public. A similar accident occurred in similar circumstances on the previous (night. The wall of a. bedroom, in which 'the five-year-old daughter of Mr and Mrs C. V. Dunnel, of East AVoolahra, was sleeping, was stove in by a runaway car, and a heavy wardrobe fell across a cot from which her mother had just snatched her.