Driver Was Intoxicated By Escaping Acetylene

Press, Volume C, Issue 29671, 15 November 1961, Page 16

Driver Was Intoxicated By Escaping Acetylene

(New Zealand Press Association)

GORE, Nov. 14. A charge of driving while intoxicated against James Lyall Beattie, of Kelso, was dismissed by Mr W. S. Spence, S.M., in the Magistrate's Court at Gore today after the defence had called evidence that Beattie’s condition was due to the accidental inhalation of acetylene. Senior-Sergeant O. D. Wilkes said Beattie’s truck collided with another vehicle going in the same direction.

A constable considered Beattie was intoxicated and this was also the view orf a doctor who examined him. Beattie said he had no more than five or six sixounce beers between 4.45 p.m. and 6 o’clock and when he left the hotel he felt no effects. Two cylinders were lying on the floor of the cab and one, an acetylene bottle contained about 501 b pressure when he went to work that day. The cylinder cap. found to be unsatisfactory by the manufacturers, had been replaced by another type. As he was driving there was a curious smell in the truck, but he did not take much notice of it as the cab was a "bit fumy." The cylinders were bumping on the floor ot the cab and he bent down to stop them moving just before the accident.

Beattie said that after the accident he felt “most peculiar.’’ He felt unwell and was unsteady on his feet. He thought this could have been the result of the fumes in the cab. Eric Geiringer, senior medical research officer at the Otago Medical School, said there was no difference between the symptom* of alcohol and acetylene.