Imprisoned in Car Beside Dead Friend

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 953, 22 April 1930, Page 1

Imprisoned in Car Beside Dead Friend

TWELVE HOURS’ ORDEAL STRUGGLES FOR FREEDOM Press Association PALMERSTON N„ Monday. To be pinned for 12 hours under an overturned motor-car with a dead companion beside him was the terrible experience of Mr. Len Simpson, a Public Works employee, of Tawa Flat, whose car capsized over a bank near Shannon at 6.30 o’clock on Sunday evening. tTVHE car turned a complete somer- * sault and the passenger, Mr. Horace Banks, was killed instantly. Mr. Simpson was jammed between the front seat and the steering wheel and with one arm behind his back. He was unable to free himself. In this precarious position he remained for 12 hours, making desperate efforts to open the door and extricate himself. After hours of struggling he succeeded between six and seven o’clock this morning. In an exhausted state he managed to reach a house a quarter of a mile away. An extraordinary feature of the accident was that several cars stopped and the occupants stood on the bank, but were unable to hear Mr. Simpson’s cries, apparently owing to the fact that they left their engines running. Messrs. Simpson and Banks left Tawa Flat at 1.30 on Sunday afternoon, reaching Shannon at 6.20. The accident occurred at a narrow bend in the road. Mr. Banks’s neck was broken. He was a single man, 34 years of age, and a recent arrival from England.