The Accident to Edward Stuckey.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume III, Issue 355, 24 September 1889, Page 2

The Accident to Edward Stuckey.

At Wellington on Thursday morning, Edward Stuckey (aged about 16), a wellknown Gisborne youth, and who was employed as a billiard marker at the Club Hotel, Lambton Quay, while engaged in cleaning the bedroom window on the northern end of the third storey of the building lost his balance and fell backward on to the concrete pavement beneath, a distance of between 30 and 40 feet. The Wellington Press gives the following account of the accident:—Nobody connected with the hotel saw the you h fall, but they were soon acquainted with the fact by passers by, and the poor fellow who was lying face downwards, bleeding profusely from the mouth and nose, was promptly carried into the hotel, in a semi-conscious state, and placed on a sofa in the billiard room. Dr Goff, partner of Dr Henry, was sent for and was on the scene almost immediately. He made such an examination of the young man as circumstances would permit, and found that he had sustained a severe injury to the spine and was suffering from oonoussion of the brain. Three of the front teeth of the top row were broken and several others loosened, while the lower row of teeth had been driven completely through the lip, inflicting a very ugly ragged gash of about two inches in length. The face also showed signs of the terrible blow with which the young fellow must have struck the pavement. Ths left eya was completely dosed and blackened, while the whole countenance was bruised and swollen. On the arms also were abrasions ot the shin and bruises. As Dr Goff could do nothing for the poor fellow there, he. at once ordered a cab to ba brought, which was done, and Stuckey was drived to the Hospital. As to the causes which led to the accident, it seems, although no one saw him at his work, that Stuckey wrs sitting on the window-sill with his back to the street and his feet in the bedroom. He had thrown the lower sash up to the top of the window frame and had drawn the top sash down on his knees, and it is supposed that he was in the act of reaching to the top of the pane with the cleaning cloth with one hand and holding on to the bottom of the a.sh with the other, when he overbalanced himself, falling backward, and the sash, which fitted very loosely into the frame, coming out of its place suddenly deprived him of his hold. This conclusion is arrived at from the state of the window upon examination after the accident, when the sash was found outside the frame and hanging by the .ash cords. There was also s > much “ play " between the side of the window .ash and the frame as to enable the .ash to be pushed out past the beading. Mr Kennedy, licensee of the hotel, and Mrs Kennedy state that young Stuckey in cleaning the outside of the window on any but

the ground floor was acting in direct disobedience to their most strict instructions. MrsSKennody s'ates that only two days ago she had occasion to severely reprimand him for sitting on ths window sill of the upper storey and joking with the passers by in the street. The standing orders of the hotel are that all the windows above the ground floor are to be washed with a hose specially provided for ths purpose. The unfortunate young fellow is apparently little known in town. He had been employed at the Club Hotel for about five weeks and it is supThe unfortunate youth was In a precarious condition until Saturday, when he regained consciousness, and nt latest accounts the patient was progressing favorably.