FALL FROM LORRY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 204, 29 August 1935, Page 7

FALL FROM LORRY.

RETIRED FARMER'S DEATH. DUE TO HEART DEFECT. (Dj Telegraph.—Own Correspondent.) PUKEKOHE, this day. The inquest into the death on August 13 of a well-known Pukekohe resident, Francis Horace Graham, aged 00, an unmarried retired farmer, was resumed to-day before Mr. C. K. Lawrie, district coroner. Evidence revealed that deceased fell off a motor truck on the morning of August 2 and suffered apparently slight injuries. Errol James Carter, driver of the motor truck, stated that after leaving a party at Puni about 1 o'clock in the morning of August 2 he came back as far as Pukekohe.. He stopped the truck at West Street, as someone on board called that he wanted to get off. Tlie.n another of the party on board asked him to back and take deceased home up a side road. He commenced to back, but someone called him to stop. Just as he stopped lie felt a slight bump.- Hi; was informed that deceased had fallen out of the truck so they took him to Dr. Beg, who gave him medical attention. Frederick Mervin Wharfe said that after the truck began to back he walked beside it. He saw deceased full off the truck and under a rear wheel, so he called to the driver to stop, which ho did. but not before the wheel came into contact with deceased's leg. Deceased had had liquor at the party but was not drunk. Dr. F. W. Lumeden, who performed the post mortem examination, described certain minor injuries to deceased's right thigh. The heart was slightly enlarged and he came to the conclusion that death was due to coronary thromhisis, which in his opinion was not contributed to or accelerated by recent injuries. Dr. A. T. IJegg stated that he attended deceased following the accident and then sent him home. He saw him again on August 7, when his condition was quite satisfactory. On the evening of August 13 he received an urgent call, but deceased was dead when he arrived. He was of opinion that death was caused by a blood clot travelling to the heart and blocking either it or the lungs. The Coroner returned a verdict that death was due to a blood clot causing heart failure, but that there was no reason to believe that recent injuries in any way caused death.