MYERS DEATH

Press, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 23804, 25 November 1942, Page 2

MYERS DEATH

♦ BURNED UNDER WATER (0.C.) SYDNEY, November 10. Deep down on the bed of the Hawkesbury river in an underwater chamber a diver, Arthur Edward Preston, 36, was slowly burned to death by his clothing which had caught fire. It was an hour before he was raised to the surface, and he died an hour and a half after admission to hospital. Preston had been lowered in an airlock diving chamber to the riverbed. He was supplied with compressed air through piping. Before he was lowered Preston is thought to have placed in one of his pockets a- pipe he had been smoking. Tobacco embers set his clothes smouldering, and he was unable to extinguish the fire, which was slowly burning his clothes away. Inch by inch the smouldering clothing seared and blistered his flesh. The workmen on the surface were unaware of Preston’s agony until they saw smoke rise from buckets that were being brought up. They immediately tutned off the compressed air, but because quicker change of pressure would have injured the diver's lungs, they raised him by gentle stages which took an hour to complete. When raised, Preston was unconscious. Most of his clothing had been burned off.