KILLED BY ELECTRIC SHOCK

Press, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22105, 29 May 1937, Page 8

KILLED BY ELECTRIC SHOCK

VERDICT OF ACCIDENTAL DEATH [THE PRESS Special Service.] WESTPORT, May 28. At an inquest held at Granity to-day into the death of Alexander Burt, of Millerton, an electrical engineer employed by the Westport Coal Company, who was killed by an electric,shock yesterday, the verdict of the Coroner (Mr E. R. Fox) was that Burt was accidentally killed by a wire he was handling in the course of his employment coming in contact with a high tension wire at the Westport Coal Company’s mine at Millerton. Sergeant C. J. King appeared for the police, Mr O. J. Davis for the Westport Coal Company, Mr J. Hadcroft (Inspector of Mines) for the Mines Department), and Mr R. G. Mac Gibbon, for the Public Works Department. Evidence of identification was given by Constable McQuarrie, of Millerton. Dr. E. V. Maxwell, who examined Burt’s body, described the severe burns as caused by a powerful electric current. The evidence of William Craighead, who was assisting Burt at the time of the accident, and of Roy Gregor Mac Gibbon (electrical engineer to the Public Works Department in Christchurch), who examined the locality, indicated that the cause of the accident was the surging up of the telephone wire that Burt and Craighead were shifting sideways away from the power line, which caused the telephone wire to catch on a power line insulator at a point where there is a bend of 30 degrees in the power line.