KHYBER PASS FATALITY

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 46, 17 May 1927, Page 7

KHYBER PASS FATALITY

WOMAN KNOCKED DOWN CORONER’S FINDING “People lose their heads and you can’t tell what they are going to do. It might happen to any of us.” In recording a verdict of accidental death at the inquest on Christina Jane Fordyce, an elderly single woman who was knocked down and killed in Khyber Pass Road by a car driven by Henry Hatch, on April 21, the coroner, Mr. F. K. Hunt, S.M., exonerated the driver from blame. Miss Fordyce was unconscious when picked up, and was taken to the hospital, where it was found that she was suffering from 13 broken ribs, as well as other internal injuries. She died four hours later. Miss Avis Hewitt, who was a passenger in the car, told the coroner that the driver, Mr. Hatch, was not driving fast. As they were approaching her he remarked: “I wonder what this woman is going to do?”

“As he spoke,” said the witness, “she stepped off the footpath on to the road, hesitated for a moment, and then went on a few steps and stopped again. Mr. Hatch again blew his horn. We could have been only a few yards from her when she looked round, put her head down, and walked right in front of the car.”

In his evidence Henry Hatch said: “She hesitated, and I swerved out. The woman then ran again, and ran in front of my car.”

To Mr. Thorne, who appeared for the deceased’s relatives, the driver said that on seing the woman step off the footpath, he took a good sweep out to avoid her. At the point where he hit her the car was almost at a standstill and swerved right over on the lock at right angles. The left mudguard hit the woman, he said, but there was no mark on it after the accident.