Tyre Worker’s Arm Inflated

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30856, 15 September 1965, Page 18

Tyre Worker’s Arm Inflated

(New Zealand Press Association)

AUCKLAND, September 14.

A hypodermic needle fitted to a high pressure air hose pierced the thumb of a tyre checker at a city factory on Monday night, inflating his arm to twice its normal size.

“I felt my arm going up just like a balloon," said the man, Mr B. P. Wright, aged 23, an employee at the Firestone Tyre and Rubber Co. of N.Z., Ltd., Khyber Pass road, tonight Mr Wright was checking tubeless tyres to be retreaded. Large hypodermic needles adapted to the air

hose, with a pressure of 1251 b a square inch, are pushed into the tyre to test it for weaknesses. “I pushed the needle in and it went right through,” said Mr Wright. “I pulled it out again, but it hit my thumb the second time. “It was only in and out, but that was enough,” he said. “I felt my skin lifting with the pressure.” Mr Wright was sent home after treatment at Auckland Hospital. His arm was still swollen tonight and the movement of the air could be felt beneath the skin. An Australian on a working holiday here, Mr Wright returned to the hospital today for more treatment. The manager of the retreading department, Mr J. R. G. Bolton, once suffered a similar injury. The Medical Superintendent of Auckland Hospital, Dr. D. R. Goodfellow, said the man would probably, have been killed if the air entered a vein.