CHILD’S DEATH IN WATER-RACE

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28697, 22 September 1958, Page 7

CHILD’S DEATH IN WATER-RACE

Result Of Inquest

In Ashburton (From Out Own Reporter) ASHBURTON, September 21. "This seems to be one of those unfortunate things that are always likely to happen when children are close to water,” said the District Coroner (Mr L. A. Charles) when the inquest into the death of David John Benfell, aged two years and a half, was concluded on Friday. Mr Charles returned a verdict of death through asphyxiation, caused by drowning. The boy’s body was found on September 3, 1958, in an irrigation race at Winchmore which had been dry for several weeks, and had been switched on by Ministry of Works employees the day before the fatality. In evidence given when the inquest opened on September 4, Janet Helen Benfell, the mother of the dead child, said that at noon on September 3 the boy had lunch and then went to play in the yard. She said that at 2.10 p.m. she looked out of the house and had seen the boy playing in a paddock nearby. When she looked about five minutes later he had disappeared. After searching the immediate area. Mrs Benfell said that she had driven along the road looking for him. A search had been organised. William Alexander Jamison, a Dromore farmer, said he had found the boy’s body in front of a concrete drain, at about 6 p.m., a mile and a half from the Benfell home. Constable I. Rose, stationed at Ashburton, said that the boy would have had to climb over two fences to reach the water. The Coroner said that the water race was protected by two good wire fences, and it was hard could have done to prevent-chil-dren from getting into the water.