Motor-Car’s Fatal Skid

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 138, 1 September 1927, Page 1

Motor-Car’s Fatal Skid

STEERING GEAR COLLAPSES Hurled Into Open Drain (From Our Own Correspondent.) TE AEOHA, To-day. ASAD fatality occurred here a few minutes after eight o’clock this morning when a well-known resident of this district, Mr. Albert Arthur Wagstaff, of Ejastport Road, Waihou, was accidentally drowned in a drain on No. 1 Road, Waitoa, through the skidding of his car.

TV/fR. WAG STAFF, accompanied by his daughter, Miss Connie Wagstaff, was motoring to Waitoa to catch the

early morning train to Hamilton, where the deceased gentleman was to attend a meeting of the Waikato Hospital Board. Without warning the steering gear collapsed, with the result that the car skidded and fell into a drain, both the occupants being thrown into the water, which was about eight feet deep. Miss Wagstaff managed to reach safety, but her father failed to rise, and the body was eventually recovered a quarter of a mile below the scene of the accident. Mr. Wagstaff had been farming in this district since 1910, and was keenly interested in local bodies. Besides being a member of the Waikato Hospital Board he was also a member of the Thames Harbour Board, Waitoa Drainage Board, and was lately elected president of the Thames Valley A. and P. Association. The deceased gentleman, who was 60 years of age, is survived by his widow, one daughter and three sons, all of whom reside in the district.