TRAGEDY’S LAST ACT

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 712, 11 July 1929, Page 18

TRAGEDY’S LAST ACT

SUICIDE IN INFIRMARY PARALYSED MAN’S DEATH Wednesday saw the end of a tragic life when a verdict of death through loss of blood, the result of a self-inflicted wound, was returned by the coroner, Mr. F. K. Hunt, S.M., at an inquest on the death of Francis Raymond Hyde, aged 25. . Mr. Hyde died in the Auckland Hospital shortly after one o’clock yesterday morning after his removal from the Auckland Infirmary, where he was discovered on Monday afternoon with a large wound in the right groin. Paralysed from the waist down, deceased, who was a single man aged 25, was injured in Canada, his spinal cord being severed when he was run over by a dray. He was sent back to New Zealand over a year ago and has been in the infirmary since, except for a brief stay in the hospital immediately after his arrival on the Aorangi. There was a double-bladed claspknife lying on a table next to deceased when he was found, while there was no other weapon nearby. Deceased had never threatened suicide and was always cheerful. Just, after the finding of deceased Dr. A. N. McKelvie, medical superintendent, received a telegram from Hyde’s brother asking to be immediately informed as to deceased’s condition, an inquiry which had never been received before. It was possible that deceased had written to his brother telling him what he was about to do. Following his injury in Canada, Hyde endeavoured to obtain compensation. Owing to Canadian law his efforts were in vain, but he was finally able to return to Auckland through the assistance of his brother and New Zealanders resident in Vancouver.