A TANGITU FATALITY.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VII, Issue 598, 30 August 1913, Page 5

A TANGITU FATALITY.

KILLED IN THE BUSH

CORONER'S RECOMMENDATION Taumarunui. Thursday.

The circumstances surrounding the death of Joseph Eitfcams, who was killed at Tangitu on Tuesday, were of a very tragic nature. Pittams had recently acquired 400 acres at Tangitu, about nine miles from Wairaiba station, and, assisted by his fourteen-year-old son and a man named Hugh Cameron, he was felling the bush on the section for a home for the rest of his family.

On Tuesday last they wero putting a saw-cut in a tawa tree, 2ft 6in in diameter, and when the saw had cut. through about a foot of the trunk, the tree began to split. The men ran for safety and they had gone about six yards when Pittams tripped on a root and fell. He endeavoured to rise from the ground, but as he was doing so the tree swung backwards and fell acros3 his chest, pinning him to the ground. Cameron worked feverishly to release his employer by chopping off a portion of the log, but when this was at last done, and the log rolled away, Pittams was dead. The body was brought into Waimiha, and taken by the afternoon train' to Taumarnnui where an inquest was held to day. before Mr Laird, the district coroner. Evidence was given by Cameron and the boy. and a verdict, of accidental death was returned. The Coroner stated that he intended to lay before the Minister for Public Works the state of the road leading to the section from Waimiha, which was so bad that if; took 32 men many hours to carry the body nine miles Pittairi3 loaves