BOY LOSES FINGER TIPS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 60, 12 March 1938, Page 10

BOY LOSES FINGER TIPS.

j PLATING WITH DETONATORS. When a detonator with which lie was playing yesterday exploded, Robert George Turner, aged seven years, the elder child of Air. and Mrs. G. Turner, of Gum Block Road, Swanson. had the tips of his left hand blown off. It is believed that the boy applied a match to the detonator. The previous evening the boy had returned from k walk along Gum Block Road with his five-year-old sister, Elizabeth, and had called his father's attention to a number of articles which he had found on the roadside. Mr. Turner examined one and discovered it to be a spent .22 cartridge. As the others were similar in shape and size, he assumed that they would be harmless playthings. In reality he had examined the only empty cartridge shell among about eight live detonators. While milking yesterday morning Mr. and Mrs. Turner heard an explosion followed by. crie« from tho direction of their house, where they, found the two children near the back door, the boy with his left hnnd badly injured and the girl with slight scratches on her legs. A number of detonators were on the ground, and thn remains of a matchbox. which had been left inside the house, were strewn about. The injured boy was taken to the Auckland Hospital, where he was progressing favourably this morning. i