ACCIDENTS & FATALITIES

Southland Times, Issue 18846, 11 June 1920, Page 6

ACCIDENTS & FATALITIES

| FALL FROM A TRAIN. HIE PENROSE MYSTERY. (Per United Press Association.) AUCKLAND, June 10. An inquest respecting the death of a ship's steward named James Mallin (23t, who fell from a moving train at Penrose on Mondiiy evening and subsequently died in hospital, was held before Mr J. 10. Wilson, S.M., to-day. Evidence was given that two Penrose residents were attracted by a cry near the railway line after 8 o'clock on Monday evening, and found two men, Mallin and Murdock McLeod, lying injured beside the line, Mallin being unconscious. Both were sent to hospital, where Mallin died next morning. McLeod had a head wound and an arm wound, but was not seriously hurt.

McLeod in his evidence stated that he and Mallin were both ship stewards and lived at the same [dace at Onehunga. They had been in town together on Monday, and left for Onehunga shortly after 6 o’clock. They changed trains at Penrose, and went inside the carriage, but went out on the carriage platform just after the train started. Witness said he was standing outside the door and his friend was leaning with his back to the platform rail singing and beating time with his hands. Witness then had a faint recollection of falling off the platform through the platform gate. It was dark at the time, he said, and ho did not notice whether or not the gate was open when they went out on the platform. When ho came to he called out.

In answer to the Coroner, McLeod said that Mallin did not have any drink in his company, but between 5.15 gnd 6 p.rn. he was in the Waverley Hotel with someone else. When witness rejoined Mallin just aftr 0 p.m„ Mallin appeared to him to he quite sober. Witness could not give any reason for going out of the carriage to stand on the platform, and he could not say how cither he or Mallin fell off the platform. He thought it must have been caused bv a lurch of the train.

The Coroner found that Mullins death as caused by falling from a moving train at Penrose, and that there was no evidence to show how he came to fall from the train.