FATAL ACCIDENT AT BALMORAL

Press, Volume XCIII, Issue 27920, 17 March 1956, Page 10

FATAL ACCIDENT AT BALMORAL

INQUEST INTO DEATH OF SOLDIER (From Our Own Reporter) FAIRLIE, March 16. An inquest into the death of Murray MacDonald Sands, of Bluff, a trooper in the Third Armoured Regiment, who died as a result of an accident at Balmoral Military Camp, was resumed today at Fairlie before the district Coroner, Mr J. A. Fraser. Trooper George Alexander Menlove gave evidence that on March 5 he had I been assisting the cooks to clean the stove and prepare the. food ibr lue next day. While having supper between 10.45 and 11 p.m. he was sitting with his back to the stove when he heard a loud explosion. He saw Trooper Sands in the middle of the floor enveloped in flames from the knees upwards. Witness said he had helped to beat out the flames. Earlier he had seen a pressure lamp standing on the corner of the stove. He described how on the day of the accident. he had refilled one'of the lamps. It had been filled from a tin marked: “white spirit.” Stores Quartermaster Sergeant James ’ William Hardiman gave evidence that' two pressure lamps had been issued! by him to the squadron cooks. No instructions had been given to him. nor had he passed on to the cooks about the filling and lighting of these lamps. . After the evidence had been taken the inquest was adjourned, to be resumed at Timaru. Mr R. P. Thompson <Christchurch) attended the inquest on behalf of Sands's relatives.