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 DEATH
IN COLLISION
Coroner Gives Open
Finding.
The Acting Coroner (Mr.
W. Schofield, JP.) In the Perth Courthouse yesterday after
hearing evidence at an inquest concerning the death of an
airman, Gordon
Oscar
Nichols found that he died at Perth on February 25 from multiple
injuries received when a motor car in which he was a passenger
collided with a tree in Melville parade, Como, the same day. The
driver of the car was William Thomas Greaves, of Douglas Avenue,
South Perth, who declined to give evidence. Several boys who
were in Melville parade at the time of the accident gave
evidence that they saw a green car travelling south in Melville
parade about 8.45 pm. About half an hour later they saw the car
returning at a high speed (one boy estimated it as 60 miles per
hour). There was a screech of tyres as the car neared Preston
street and then a loud crash. The car had collided with an
ornamental tree on the east side of the parade and the two
occupants were badly injured. Constable R. C. Salter said that
he followed the course of the car by plainly indicated tyre
marks near Preston-street to where 30 yards further on the car
had left the bitumen
for several yards: Apparently it regained
the bitumen but swerved across to the east side of the road,
left the bitumen again and struck a tree with such force that it
uprooted it. The car was almost completely wrecked. Evidence was
given that Nicholls
was dead on arrival at the Perth Hospital where he had been
taken by a St. John ambulance. Sgt. R. Larsen assisted the
Acting Coroner, Mr. L. H. Killeen appeared for the widow of the
deceased and Mr. S. H. Johnson, of Hardwick, Slattery and
Gibson, appeared for the driver.
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