SHOOTING FRACAS AT OTIRA.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVII, Issue 2894, 9 June 1925, Page 3

SHOOTING FRACAS AT OTIRA.

Grcymouth, June 7. A fracas in a firewood cutter’s camp, six miles from Otira on Friday evening, resulted in Frederick Easterbrook being shot through the right thigh, the bone being fractured. The man is now iii Greymouth Hospital in a precarious condition. Prior to the affray, Henry Thomas Herron and Frederick Hobson, who were working with Easterbrook, all three from Christchurch, had had a number of drinks at a neighbouring bush inn, following some taken earlier in the camp on their return to which in the evening, Easterbrook kicked over a teapot, for which Herron took him to task. When the other two were seated in Herron’s tent, Easterbrook appeared with a gun and attempted to hit Herron on the head with the stock, but a rope at the roof of the tent deflected the blow, which only grazed Herron’s head. The latter grappled with Easterbrook and the gun exploded in the scuffle, the shot passing through Easterbrook’s thigh and entering the jamb of the door. - The police ascertained that the gun was not loaded at mid-day, when it was examined by a visitor to the camp, Peter Buttoln, who brought a few bottles of beer which were consumed in the camp before the visit to the bush inn. Easterbrook, who was conveyed in an ambulance to hospital during the night, alleged that Herron shot him, but Hobson who is Easterbrook’s workmate, corroborates Herron’s account, that the gun crploded in the scuffle. The police later found the gun, bent and smashed. Herron and Hobson conveyed Easterbrook to Otira for first aid immediately after the explosion, when he lost a lot of blood, but as no artery is severed, he has a chance of recovery.