PETROL VAPOUR.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 16, 19 January 1938, Page 5

PETROL VAPOUR.

CAUSE OF EXPLOSION. WELDER FATALLY INJ'JRELi. WAS REPAIRING TANK. (By Telesreoh. —Own Correspondent.) CHRISTCHLRCH, this day. The circumstances of a fatal explosion at the premises of the International Harvester Company, in Tuam Street, on December 3, were inquired into by the coroner, Mr. T. C. Levvev, during an inquest into the death of Alfred Warner, aged 22, a welder, who died the following day. Warner's death was attributed by Dr. A. B. Pearson, pathologist at the Christcliurch Hospital, to hemorrhage following a fracture of the skull and laceration of the brain. Erneet Loftley Jones, foreman in charge of the garage, said that Warner was an expert welder. About 3.15 p.m. on December 3, the witness said, he heard an explosion in the place where Warner was working, and found Warner injured about the head. Subsequently, he ascertained that Warner had been working an old tank that had been in the garage about seven months and had several times been full of water. The explosion was attributed by the witness to fumes of petrol that had lingered in the tank. He had known other similar explosions occurring when repairs were being made to petrol tajiks. Describing the explosion, Alfred Osborne Driscoll said that he was holding the tank for Warner. The explosion occurred when Warner applied the electrode of the welding apparatus. Struck in the Face. "The force of the explosion threw me backwards," said Driscoll. "I think that Warner was struck in the face by the welding apparatus when the "tank exploded, and, stepping quickly back, tripped over the apparatus and fell." The tank had been sent previously to a tinsmith to be altered, the- witness said. He did not know until after the accident that it had been tested with petrol. The alterations to the tank were described by Leslie Calvert, sheet metal worker. After altering the tank, he tested tlie joint he had made by pouring a little petrol into the tank and watch" ing for seepage. The joint proving satisfactory. he emptied the petrol out and returned the tank to tlie International Harvester Company. As far as he knew, it was a petrol tank, and was to l>e used as such, and therefore he saw no reason to advise the International Harvester Company that he- had tested the tank with petrol. Water was unsuitable for testing, as a small amount would remain and mix with the petrol subsequently put in. The eoroner found that the deceased had died on December 4 of hemorrhage following a fracture of the skull and laceration of the brain received in the course of his employment, when an old petrol tank he was welding exploded, causing him to fall over the apparatus he was using.