WORKMAN ELECTROCUTED

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 88, 12 January 1928, Page 6

WORKMAN ELECTROCUTED

DANGEROUS PORTABLE LAMP. By Telegraph— press association. Hamilton, January 11. An inquest to ascertain the cause of death of Maurice Robinson Halle, an engiaedriver, employed at the time of his death on December 18, by the Waikato Valley Dairy Company, was held to-day before the district Coroner, Mr. Wyvern Wilson, S.M. Deceased was found in a dying condition on the floor of the factory and there was some doubt as to whether death resulted from heart failure or electrocution. Alexander Murdoch Bellamy, electrical inspector, said that on the morning following the fatality he inspected the Waikato Valley Dairy Company’s factory. He tested the flexible cord of a portable lamp and found ( hat it was making contact with a brass socket of a lamp holder that would cause a defect liable to give a person touching the cooper shield of the portable lamp a shock. The Coroner said there were two unsatisfactory features about the case. The first was that apparatus was interfered with bv a person unqualified to interfere with it. and who left it in ° sotnewh it dangerous condition. II was in that condition when deceased took possession of it for the purpose or his work. The second feature was that there' was not satisfactorv evidence that this- particular- apparatus was ever inspected or tested It was certainly in a danverous condition for Ihe work in which it was’.used A verdict that deceased was accidentally electrocuted was returned.