GIRL SERIOUSLY HURT

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 506, 8 November 1928, Page 9

GIRL SERIOUSLY HURT

CLAIM FOR £I,OOO FOLLOWS STRUCK BY LORRY Crossing the road near Highbury, Birkenhead, on the evening of May 9 fast, Dutcie Alwyn Woods, aged 19, was struck by a motor-lorry and received injuries necessitating 53 days in hospital. In the Supreme Court this morning, before Mr. Justice Blair and a jury, she claimed. through her widowed mother £I,OOO general damages and £3l medical expenses from Hector King, lorry driver, and Joseph Samuel King, contractor, both of Kaukapakapa. Mr. G. F. Finlay and Mr. A. C. Stevens appeared for defendants. Mr. V. R. Meredith, for plaintiff, said the girl had received grievous injuries. Besides a broken collar-bone and minor hurts she had suffered the gravest damage to her brain which was feared to be permanently affected. The girl had arrived by the 5.10 boat from the city where ehe was employed in an office and getting out of a bus opposite her home made across in front of it at a diagonal angle. She hesitated a moment and then began to run. The bus driver, who was watching her, then had hig view obscured by a lorry which appeared to chase her across the road. He next noticed her lying on the roadway, the lorry having knocked her down. Mr. Meredith alleged that Hector King failed to give warning of his approach, that he omitted to keep a proper lookout, that he travelled at a speed, which in the circumstances was excessive. King had admitted to a traffic inspector that his foot-brake was absolutely useless. To Mr. Finlay the bus driver, Samuel David Carson, said he believed the girl migrht have got across had she not run diagonally. Witness believed it was the lorry's differential that struck the girl's head. Re-examined by Mr. Meredith, witness was at opinion that had the brakes of the lorry been in order the girl would have escaped. Alfred Ernest Waller, traffic inspector, deposed that after the accident he interviewed King, who admitted he had not sounded his horn. Witness tested the lorry and found the footbrake useless. Defendant said he was travelling 15 miles an hour and on seeing the girl run out in front of the bus swerved in an effort to avoid her. (Proceeding.)