INQUESTS.

Press, Volume LX, Issue 17983, 29 January 1924, Page 5

INQUESTS.

A CABMAN'S DEATH

An inquest into tlio circumstances concerning the death of Henry Richard Harris, a cabman, who resided at 40 Eaton place, and who died at the Christchurch Hospital on Sunday night as a result of "injuries received in being thrown from his cab at Addington, was held before Mr H. Y. Widdowson, Coroner, yesterday. Henry Harris, a son of the deceased, residing at 215 Lytton street, Spreydon, identified the body. Witness stated that before the accident his father enjoyed good health. At times the deceased drank and became intoxicated. . , Elizabeth Jane Fletcher, a widow, residing at 14 Hassell's road, Opawa, said that she knew the deceased for a number of years, and for the past two years he had driven her to the Pensions office. The horse he drove was an old one and it often stumbled. On the morning of the 14th inst. deceased -drove witness and two others to Halswell. While proceeding along Jerrold street, Addington, on the return trip the horse stumbled and fell and witness struck her head on the front of the cab. The deceased was thrown completely out of his seat, over the top of the cab and fell on the ground at the right hand side of the horse. Witness was stunned by contact with the front of the cab. but she remembered some people coming and haying the deceased removed to the hospital.

Dr. \V\ R. P.yburn, relieving house surgeon at the Christchurch Hospital, said that the deceased was admitted to the Hospital on the afternoon of the 14th inst". W hen he took over the case on Saturday deceased was almost completely paralysed from the neck downwards and he had very slight movement of the shoulders. He could speak but -with difficulty. The X-Ray report was not definite, hut the spinal cord was injured at the sixth vertebrae. The condition described would obtain from the time of the accident. On Sunday the deceased was in a very low condition, and he graduallv grew weaker and died at S.lo p.m. The cause of death was respiratory failure following injurv to the spinal cord. N The iniury described could quite easily be caused by being thrown on to his head, but there was no fracture of the skull.

The Coroner returned a verdict that death was due to respiratory failure due to injury to the spinal cord at the base of the sixth current vertebrae received through deceased bein<r accidentally thrown from his cab. "