STRUCK BY CASE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 114, 17 May 1938, Page 8

STRUCK BY CASE.

DEATH AT HOSPITAL.

HATCHMAN ON AORANGI.

MISHAP AT QUEEN'S WHARF.

Falling from a wire rope sling at a height of about 30ft, a cnsp of machinery struck a waterside worker aboard the Aorangi shortly before 10 o'clock this morning. Extensive head injuries were sustained and the man was lowered from the ship to a St. John ambulance in a very critical condition. He was admitted to the Auckland Hospital at 10.15 a.m. and died a quarter of an hour later. He is survived liy a wife and two children. The -victim was Mr. Nicholas Martin Maunders, aged 05 yeare, of 10, Cobden Street, Newton, a past president of the Waterside Workers' Union, and he was directing the unloading of cargo from No. 3 hold, immediately in front of the bridge, when the accident happened. The case, which weighed about threequarters of a ton, struck the man on the head and came to rest wedged between a window and the barrier around the hold. Under the impact, one end of the box had splintered like matchwood. Although the case had to be left in the poeition in which it fell until police investigations had been concluded, the unloading of the ship was not delayed. Few witnessed the accident, and the crowds of passengers and their friends who thronged the Queen's wharf were mainly unaware of the tragedy in their midst.