MAN ASPHYXIATED

Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 188, 7 May 1931, Page 11

MAN ASPHYXIATED

Repairs to Gas Main

A LONE UNDERTAKING

Dominion Special Service.

Gisborne, May 6.

Comment was made by Mr. P. H. Harper, S.M. coroner, to-day, on the action of the employers of the deceased worker in allowing him to work singlehanded on repairs to a gas main, the man being found dead and the air full' of gas. Deceased was Walter Hendry Morrow, 36 years, married, with one child. Before adjourning the inquest for medical evidence the coroner said: “It seems to me some comment should be made upon the action of deceased’s employers in allowing him to undertake the. work single-handed. It seems clear that the employers knew of the danger attending this class of work. They contemplated gas masks for the use of men on this sort of work and they knew that the deceased had been gassed before. It may not have been necessary for a mask to have been • supplied to the deceased for the job, but the employers had no right to allow him to undertake the class of work without taking the obviously necessary precaution of seeing he was accompanied by an experienced fellowworker. No doubt the deceased and his fellow-workers were prepared to take the risk of doing the work unaccompanied, but should not be allowed to do so, and employers should always see they are accompanied. I am confident that if they had taken these precautions the deeeased would not have lost his life.”