WATERSIDER'S DEATH

Evening Post, Volume CXXIX, Issue 134, 7 June 1940, Page 12

WATERSIDER'S DEATH

WIDOW COMPENSATED

Compensation of £1000. £23 14s medical and funeral expenses, £15.3.5s costs, and £2 2s each for two medical witnesses was awarded Mrs. Agnes Larabie Edwards, Napier, for the death by accident of her husband, a waterside worker, in a judgment of ;his Honour Mr. Justice O'Regan in the Compensation Court. The defendants were Messrs. Richardson and Co., Ltd., ship owners, and lightering contractors, of Napier, by whom the deceased was employed. '~..•-'

His Honour, reviewing the evidence, said that the deceased was one of. six men on a lighter taking carcasses of frozen mutton to a ship, and that when returning from the evening' meal, rough water was encountered, and the men were splashed with sea while securing the lighter alongside. It would appear that they were more splashed than was usual in rough weather. A witness said, "We got pretty well soaked," and it was certain that the weather was rough enough to make .the men decline to remove the hatches for half an hour until it improved. ' His Honour commented upon the low temperatures in the hold of an insulated lighter, and quoted a witness who' said that water would freeze there. About half-way through the unloading of .the lighter, Edwards complained of feeling unwell. After some time in hospital he died of lobar pneumonia.

His Honour gave the following opinion: "It is fair inference: (1) That deceased was suffering from/ right lowei lobe lobar pneumonia; (2) that pneumonia was the result of prolonged and repeated exposure to cold while working on the lighter from January 7 to 10; (3) that it is therefore not essential to decide as to whether the onset of pneumonia pre- or succeeded the wetting on the 10th, although .wetting may well be regarded as .an aggravating factor; (4) that it cannot be decided whether death was due to peripheral circulatory collapse, or pulmonary'embolism, or coronary thrombosis, but that each of these three conditions can be regarded as a sequel either to pneumonic infection or to rest in bed or both; (5)-. that deceased has died from one of these three conditions as a result of pneumonia contracted through exposure to cold,"