Monday 25 September 2023

Stephen Alphonsus Spain, 1899-23/12/1827. "thrown out of the car"

INQUEST. 

TEE FATALITY AT CLYDE.

(Special to Daily Times.) CLYDE, January 5. The adjourned inquest into the death of Stephen Alphonsus Spain was concluded at Clyde to-day before the coroner (Mr S. Stevens) and a jury of four. 

The evidence, disclosed that the accelerator of the car which the deceased was driving was out of alignment, and was jamming. The lights were so defective as to cause driving to be both difficult and highly dangerous. The deceased was taking a short cut from the back of the town of Clyde by a road which runs from the railway station along the railway line to a point near Mutton Town, where it joins the Alexandra-Clyde main road. It was about 11 p.m., and the goods train was then approaching Clyde. This road has not been in use for some time, and the deceased ran into a deep unculverted water race. The car, a high-powered six-cylinder Buick, then got out of control and dashed through a gravel pit and over the railway line. The deceased was badly cut by the windscreen, which was broken, and was thrown out of the car on to the railway line, where he was run over by the goods train. The car was in top gear when found. The engine had apparently stalled just over the line. 

The verdict of the jury was that the deceased met his death by being thrown out of a motor car on to the railway line and subsequently run over by the goods train, no blame being attachable to anybody.  

The deceased was one of the most promising young men in the county, and his untimely death has cast quite a gloom over the whole district.  -Otago Daily Times, 6/1/1928.

Alexandra Cemetery.


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