FATAL ACCIDENT.

Westport Times, Volume III, Issue 517, 15 June 1869, Page 2

FATAL ACCIDENT.

A man named William Smith, a drayman in the employ of Mr M'Cormack, Westport, lost his life on Saturday afternoon by a very simple accident. His body was recovered yesterday morning, and in the afternoon there was held, at the National Hotel, an inquest at which the following evidence was given by eye-witnesses of the circumstances:— John Jones: I am storeman at Stanley wharf. I recognise the body viewed, by the jury as that of a man named William Smith. On Saturday afternoon I was in the upper storey of the store on Stanley wharf when 1 heard some persons calling out that a dray was going into the water. I looked out of the window, and saw a dray in the river, the deceased standing upou it. The horse went a little further iuto the water, and the deceased jumped off the dray, towards the horse's head. He had not been there more than a few seconds when the dray went out of sight. The horse plunged a little and sank, and the deceased sank with him. I think he must have been struck by tho horse, because he did not rise at all after he iirst disappeared. A number of boatmen came to the scene of the accident in their boats, and the horse and dray were brought out' of the river, but they could not find the deceased. I was present this morning when the body was recovered near the spot where the accident happened.

Charles Allen Jones: On Saturday evening, while I was standing on Stanley wharf, I saw the deceased drive a horse aud dray into the river. After lie came out, he turned the horse round, aud put him in the river again. He was sitting on the dray, on the side next the river. That side of the dray went down deep iuto the water. The deceased tried to get the horse out, but it plunged ; the dray and the horse sank ; aud the water came up to the man's neck. Ho struck out with his hands to keep hiinscif afloat, and got to the horse's head, but as soon as he got hold of the head, the horse plunged more violently with his fore-feet. Tho horse seemed to strike him with his feet, and in a few seconds both disappeared.

John Terry: I received orders from the Harbor-Master, Captain Leech, to search for the body of the deceased. I went in a boat with a grapnel to the spot where the accident happened, and in about a quarter of an hour I picked the body up. It was about forty feet from Stanley wharf, on the lower side of the wharf, and on a line with its outer end. The lid of one of the deceased's eyes was torn off, and there was a mark on the bridge of the nose. In searching for the body, we used a heavy grapnel, which is kept on board the schooner Mary. It is not at all adapted for such work. It is used to pick up anchors and chains. There are no suitable grapnels in possession of the Harbor-Master.

Dr Thorpe, iu his evidence, stated that when the hody was recovered there were abrasions above and below both eyes and on the nose. The left eye-lid was split across, and the left eye was much more injected than the right. He believed these injuries were the result of blows inflicted before life was extinct. Tiie deceased was probably stunned by these blows, and consequently had appliances been at hand fo' recovering the body, resuscitation might have been effected after a longer immersion than would otherwise have been the case. Constable Neville gave evidence as to the recovery of the body. The jury, after consultation, returned a verdict of "Accidental death," aud to this verdict they appended the following rider : —" The jury would recommend that proper appliances should be procured at once, and kept at some public place near the river, as means to prevent the recurrence of similar accidents."