ACCIDENTS AND FATALITIES

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 2666, 1 December 1923, Page 3

ACCIDENTS AND FATALITIES

Tnihnpo, Last Night. A bridge at Oliniu collapsed and fell eighty feet into the river while being taken down this afternoon. Mr W. de B. Compton, the contractor, a widower, aged seventy-one years, was thrown into the water and drowned before assistance arrived. Tlis assistant, Mr Samuel Miller, aged forty-six, whose wife and five children live at Masterton, who also went down with the wreckage, was seriously injured and was taken to the Taihnpe hospital, hut the extent of his injuries is not yet known. It is believed Mr Compton came from Invercargill. Among bis belongings was a gold medal presented by the late Mr R. J. Seddon for life saving.

C. T. Edwards, 18 years of: age, apprentice jockey attached to the stables of J. Fryer, Hawera, was llirown from liis mount at the Feeding races yesterday and removed to the Palmerston North hospital. At a late hour last night he was still unconscious, and though no fears of his life were entertained, his condition was considered serious. The injuries are to the head and face.

Head and facial injuries were also sustained by a man named Ronald Stewart, a worker at Mangahao. Particulars of the accident were unobtainable last evening, but the injuries are not serious.