LITTLE GIRL WITH CHARMED LIFE.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 3573, 9 December 1926, Page 1

LITTLE GIRL WITH CHARMED LIFE.

MINING DISASTER INCIDENT. Greymouth, December 7. That truth is stranger than fiction is exemplified in the miraculous escape of Jean Patterson, the eight-year-old daughter of Mr W. Patterson, postmaster at Murchison. When the big explosion occurred the child was staying with her grandmother, Mrs LcThoinson, whose house is about half a chain from the Dobson mine bathhouse, and in almost a direct line with the mouth of the mine. After the fatal explosion, Mrs' Thomson and the child took up their quarters with her son, Mr J. W. Thomson, engine-driver at the Dobson mine, whose house is situated on a hill dose to the main entrance. The explosions which occurred on Friday night caused considerable damage to Mr Thomson’s house, one big slone crashing through the roof and grazing the bed in widely the child was sleeping. The house vacated by the lhild and her grandmother was visited to-day by a reporter. He found that the bedroom occupied there by little Jean Patterson had also suffered serious damage. A large stone had crashed through the ceiling, falling on the child’s bed. Alongside her doll at the foot of the bed lay aonther large stone. The ceiling boards through which the stones were hurled were shattered to atoms. Jean is now described by Dobson women as the little girl with the charm of life.