TWO MOTOR SMASHES

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 697, 24 June 1929, Page 1

TWO MOTOR SMASHES

Plunge On to Railway CARS LEAP IN KHYBER PASS Terrific Collision in Grey Lynn rEIR car skidding on the greasy road and plunging 15ft. to the railway track below, Messrs. Frank Hutter and W. A. Penton had a lucky escape from death at the Khyber Pass railway bridge this morning. Mr. Hutter suffered a fractured arm, but Mr. Penton escaped unscathed. The car was a battered wreck. Two men were injured when two cars collided with terrific impact at a street corner in Crey Lynn.

The accident occurred shortly after 10 o’clock, when Mr. Hutter was on his way to Alexandra Park to broadcast today’s trotting. Mr. Penton was his mechanic. CRASHED THROUGH FENCE According to the driver, the car was well under control and travelling down Khyber Pass at about 15 miles an hour. When approaching the railway bridge, just before the Park Road intersection, brakes were applied as a tramcar was drawing up at the stopping place by the bridge. The tyres skidded, probably on the boarding of the bridge, which was coated with slippery mud, and the car struck a telegraph pole on the left-hand side of the road, cannoning off to smash through two spans of the wooden bridge and drop to the railway line. The car dived nose foremost into an iron telegraph pole implanted in the bank. The force of the impact was terrific, as the radiator was badly crumpled and the sturdy pole was afterward loose in its socket. Mr. Hutter was taken to hospital in the ambulance, but his companion gathered up what radio equipment was in the car and returned to the radio broadcasting depot. BYSTANDER STOPS TRAIN Mr. N. Neilson, who lives nearby, climbed down into the cutting and ran up the track warning the driver of a northern goods train that there was an obstruction on the line. Members of a crowd of spectators who had gathered by this time, also climbed down to the rails and pushed the car through the tunnel beneath the road and on to a grass plot at the side of the line on the south side of Khyber Pass. Railway men and motor mechanics were soon on the scene and the car was pushed along’ the line to a level-cross-ing near the Mount Eden Gaoi, whence' it was taken to the repair shop. The car presented a sorry sight after the smash. It is owned by Shorters Rental Cars, Limited, and is a sedan, only two weeks old. According to the speedometer it had travelled only 1,900 miles. The driver’s seat was not greatly damaged by the fall and another lucky aspect of the accident from the occupants’ point of view was that the windscreen was intact. Three of the four side windows were smashed as was the rear window. Where it struck the iron pole the radiator was badly crumpled and the rear of the roof was battered out of all semblance to its former shape. The back seat was forced out of place, and the floorboards pushed up. All four tyres were still inflated. MR. HUTTER’S LUCK Mr. Hutter is well known to listen-ers-in as a popular sports announcer.

His brother told a Sun man this morning that bad luck, as far as injuries are concerned, had dogged him for the last 12 months. “Last year he broke an ankle'- at football and at cricket his eye was torn open—now this !” A bystander was very definite in his conviction that both men and particularly Mr. Hutter were lucky to escape with their lives. The Radio Broadcasting Company hastily made fresh arrangements for broadcasting the races and was on the air by one o’clock. TRAIN SERVICE HINDERED When the car crashed over the side of the bridge it carried away the telegraph line connecting the Newmarket signal box with that at the Mount Eden station. The tablet services were cut off and no train was able to enter the block. One goods train jom the North was thus held up for about eight minutes, but within a-quarter of an hour of the accident a gang had repaired the line and the train was able to proceed. None of the telegraphic connections with stations farther North were interfered with.

TWO MEN INJURED TERRIFIC IMPACT IN GREY LYNN Two men were badly injured in a severe car collision at 1.15 o’clock this afternoon at the intersection of Williamson Avenue and Dryden Street, Grey Lynn. St. John Ambulance men were immediately on the scene and the injured men were taken to the public hospital. They were in a light car travelling down Dryden Street when a heavy sedan car going toward the city down Williamson Avenue smashed into the lighter oar and threw it up near the pavement. The hood of the light car was ripped off, a wheel was torn off, the bonnet was badly damaged and the wind-screen was shattered. The sedan turned right over, but its driver escaped without injury. A passenger with him, Miss Rita Corson, suffered from shock only, and was removed to a neighbouring house. The fore part of the sedan car was smashed in and glass in the car was broken. Residents in the vicinity described the impact as terrific. The driver of the sedan, car Was Mr, H. R. Page.