OALLIOPE DOCK ACCIDENT.

Evening Post, Volume LXXII, Issue 129, 28 November 1906, Page 3

OALLIOPE DOCK ACCIDENT.

A STEAMER'S FATAL PLUNGE. , NUMBER OF MEN INJURED. ' TWO REPORTED MISSING. (BT TEMGRAFH. — FRE3S ASSOCIATION.! AUCKLAND, 27th November. Particulars of the accident at the Calliope Dock show that the Shaw, Savill and Albion Company's steamer tfamiri, a fine vessel of 6689 tons, when Being docked just before 12 o'clock toiay, settled down and surged forward, Musing a sort of tidal wave in the dock. Some fifty men were at the iime scraping and painting cm stages ilongside the steamer, and a very large i number of them were swept into the water. Two men are missing, and they ire believed to have been drowned. Many others were injured, some of Ihem seriously. THE INJURED. The names of the men injured are : — Arthur Taylor, contusion of hip. William Henry Smith, comminuted fracture of the right leg and fracture Df the kneecap. ' Rossnpll, scalp wound. Cairns, abrasions to ankle. Gilmour, injuries to shin and back. Michael WesterYi, injuries to ankle ■ md scalp wounds. Charles Humphries, injuries to right thigh. Charles Flanighan, brnises on right <eg. F. Poyntin, scalp wounds and bruises to. back of head. Stanley Austin, bruise 3. Joseph Henley, bruises to left leg. Mayall, injuries to head and suffering from the effects of immersion, also internal injuries. George Knox, bruises on head and scalp wound. „ James Anderson, contusion of the back in. the lumbar region/ Th.c most seriously injured men are Smith and Mayall. whose condition is regarded as critical. MISSING MEN. When all the workmen had reached the dock side and the water had become calm, there was a hasty muster of the roll, and the discovery was made that two men were missing who had . been working near the vessel's rolling chocks. Their names were :—: — Clark, painter, aged 22 years, living at Ponsonby. unmarried. May, painter, aged 22 years, also living at Ponsonby, and unmarried. HOW THE ACCDDEXT HAPPENED. The Mamari had entered the dock at" high water for the purpose of beiiig . repainted. The big steamer slid bodily forward about four feet without the slightest -warning, and settled down upon the dock. The water at the time reached to about the vessel's bilge keels, but when the Mamari settled down in such an appallingly sudden manner — the extra displacement raising a commotion similar to a tidal waye, which swept backwards and forwards in the narrow basin — the busy workers were (Overwhelmed. Terrible confusion ensued. The men who had been scrubbing the iron hull were in an instant engulfed in the seething wivter, which swept them helplessly against the cement sides of the dock, and threw them back to the hull with terrible force. Few escaped injury. It was with a crashing noise that the vessel made the fatal forward move, and the wonder is that she did not rip ont all the wooden shores which propped her in an upright position. A number of shores fell, but luckily the majority held. TKe Mamari kept a perpendicular position, and the men. who were.struggling in the water were mercifully spared a terrible death by being crushed between the ship and the dock side. STATEMENT BY THE CAPTAIN. Captain Moffatt, master of the Sfaniari, told a' reporter that he had just gone round the ship, and said to the mate that when the water got a little lower they would all go under the bottom. It was a lucky thing for the ship's company that the accident happened »rhen it did, for had it occurred a quarter of an hoar later they would have all been under the bottom of the vessel, and the affair might have been far more serious. Asked as to the circumstances of the accident, Captain Moffatt said that -when the supports collapsed there was about ten feet of water in the dock. The accident caused the boat to drop, and shs then shot forward for a short distance. The water seemed to act as a cushion, and a hasty examination made shortly afterwards revealed the fact that the vessel had apparently suffered no serious damage. When the boat dropped into the dock the water squelched' up on either side, and the wash upset the punts in which the men were work■»ng. At first it was reported th^t three men ware missing, but some time after the accident one of them was found lying in grass in the dockyard. The harbourmaster (Captain Dnder) states that as soon as the men were got out of the dock it was again filled with water- for the safety of the vessel. The Mamari trill be floated out of dock this afternoon, and will go back later. The crew of the Mamari rendered every assistance possible in rescuing the injured, and their conduct is very favourably spoken of by their captain and others who saw the accident. OTHJJR PARTICULARS. Looking' nike a hospital ship, with a row of blanket-covered, bandaged figures on deck, the paddle steamer Osprey brought the injured men across from the dock to the Auckland wharf. There they were attended to by a number of ladies, who did all possible to ease their sufferings while the work of transferring them to vehicles for conveyance to the district hospital was in progress. Both local, ambulances were requisitioned, and in sddition a number of the injured were conveyed in cabs. Some were able to sib np, others lay stretched at full length across the cabs. One of the less severely injured was •peken to by a reporter as to the accident. "I really don't know how it happened," he said. "There were fourteen or fifteen of us working on a punt beside the vessel ; there being about seven feet of water in the dock. Suddenly the vessel slipped off the chocks under her keel, and came down almost on top of us. What happened th«n I don't know." \V. Jessen, painting contractor, who was employing most of the men involved, was a spectator of the disaster from the dock wall. He-oays he hod & narrow escape from being involved in the, accident. "I had just left Clark and May — th« missing me," he said. "They were Working on a level with the rolling chocks. I was talking to an officer of the Mamari when there was a sort of crash, and the steamer slipped forward. I should estimate she went four feet forward and fell about as much, causing a big wave, which flowed first up to the head of the dock and then back. The men v/ero washing the hull, and they were swept away by the heavy wave. Several shore* s a ve way, but most of them held, otherwise twenty or,thirty men wonld certainly have been killed by the boat falling upon them. The water at the time when the accident happened was on a level with the rolling chocks. Another quarter of na hour and everbody wonld have been .under tho flat bottom of the ship. It would have b*%n a. .worse accident then/