DEER STALKING TRAGEDY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 3 May 1938, Page 6

DEER STALKING TRAGEDY

BOY SHOT NEAR GORE. (By Telegraph—Press Association). DUNEDIN, May 1. A tragedy occurred on a deer-stalk-ing expedition at Greenvale, near Gore, about 3 p.m. today when James Ralph Clark, aged 15, son of a widow, of Bay Road, Waitati, was fatally shot. In company with two other youths, John Allan, Waitati. and Leonard Ritchie, Gore, Clark, who was not carrying a rifle, set out on a deer-stalking expedition on the property of Messrs H. R. and F. Henderson. The members of the party separated, and not long after Allan saw a clump of bush of manuka being disturbed. Evidently thinking a deer caused the movement he aimed his .303 rifle and fired into the bush. On investigating he found that it was Clark at whom he had unknowingly fired. ‘ An examination showed that Clark had been shot through the groin and was still alive. Allan and Ritchie hurriedly made a stretcher, and when Clark had been made as comfortable as possible, set out on their return across difficult country, through dense bush, to the homestead. Before they reached it, however, Clark had died.