ACCIDENTAL DROWNING

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 345, 28 January 1937, Page 4

ACCIDENTAL DROWNING

YOUNG GIRL’S DEATH Inquest Verdict On Tragedy At Tangarakau. “Accidental death by drowning,” was the verdict at the inquest held yesterday before the Coroner, Mr. W. L. Kennedy J.P. on June Francis Stewart tho eight-year-old child who was drowned in the Tangarakau River on Monday. The story unfolded by the evidence of the two children who saw the accident, Colin Gordon, aged five years, and Ronald Stewart, four-year-old brother of the girl, indicated that she had climbed a tree alongside the river and was trying to pick nuts when she lost her hold and fell on to the sloping bank and into the river. She apparently swam a little and then sank.

The two boys summoned help from the nearly cottages, out a search carried on until dusk revealed no traces of the child. James Arthur Stewart, railway surfaceman and father of the child, identified the body as that of his daughter. He stated that the girl had not been in the habit of going to the river. He had last seen her at 7.30 a.m. on Monday, when she was in reasonable health.

Questioned on this point he explained that the child was convales ing after being in with pneumonia.

He had no personal knowledge of how the accident happj'.'-d, said Ste wart, but he had been present when the body had been found and was of o'pinion, that death was purely accidental. Hilda Francis Stewart, mother of the girl, said that at about 1.30 p.m the girl had left the house, ace;;m Panied by her brother. Runaid. She had told the chi’..lren “to play up on ihe hill” and had had no knowledge that they had gone to the liver.

She was first told of the accident at 145 p.m. by Ronald. She immediately ran down to the bank, finding Mr. Eggerton already there. There was no sign of the child. G. Eggerton and Andrew Miller, described the search during the after noon and the following morning when grappling irons were used. The body had been found at 11.30 after an hour’s search.

Sergeant C. N. Annis, Stratford, said that he had examined the body on which there appeared to be bruising alongside the right eye and on the nose, Ilidrtsatlng that she had struck the bank in her fall. He was satisfied that death was accidental.