Employee made brave effort to fight blaze—Coroner

Press, 16 May 1985, Page 4

Employee made brave effort to fight blaze —Coroner

PA Auckland A man who died in March from burns suffered in a chemical plant fire in December made a valiant attempt to extinguish the initial blaze, said the Auckland Coroner, Mr Stephen Osborne, yesterday.

The Coroner was conducting an inquest into the death of Robert Grahame Plummer, aged 62, a cleaner at the Mount Wellington factory of 1.C.1. New Zealand when fire broke out on December 21. One of Mr Plummer’s workmates, Mr Tony O’Connor, said he was at an end-of-year barbecue at the factory when he saw smoke and heard screams. He said Mr Plummer was trapped in a second-floor office and

would not jump because he was too far from the ground A manager at the plant, Mr R.M. Alexander, said he saw an employee trying to extinguish a small blaze in the building. He raised the alarm and on the way outside saw Mr Plummer rush past with a fire extinguisher towards the fire. Extracts from a Fire Service report said the fire apparently started when swimming pool chlorine came in contact with a contaminant, possibly oil from fork lifts on the floor.

The report said the employee who first tried to extinguish the fire realised that hand extinguishers were useless, and as he was leaving the building he urged Mr Plummer to get

outside. The Coroner said the scene at the fire was one of great confusion. “Mr Plummer made a valiant — some could say heroic — attempt to extinguish the blaze and, unfortunately for him, left his means of escape too late and was no doubt overcome by heat and fumes.” The Coroner said he did not think the evidence showed anything intrinsically unsafe at the plant. However, he hoped the Fire Service report, which was made available to 1.C.1., would prevent a similar accident. He found that Mr Plummer died in Auckland Hospital on March 16 from burns accidentally suffered in the fire.