SMOTHERED IN KAPOK

Evening Star, Issue 17312, 27 March 1920, Page 6

SMOTHERED IN KAPOK

An. inquest was held late vesterdav afternoon by Mr J. R. Bartholomew', bergeant " M'Kenzie marshalling the witnesses, on the body of Robert Uuneron I'erguson, aged 17 months son of Mr John Bobert Ferguson, coal carter, of j.\o. 8 Lambeth road, Dunecim. Mabel Alice Ferguson, the mother, said that the child was a healthy one. On Jhursclay, about o D.'m., shf> was working with kapok for pillows, and went out of the room to get a broom leaving the deceased and two other onildroii in the room. She was awav not a minute. When she returned she found the infant lying face downward on the kapok. She lifted him and ran to a tap. He was covered with the kapok. She- took him outside, and called a neighbor, who went for a aoctor. Dr Carswell arrived in about a quarter of an hour, and took the child to tlio Hospital. Dr Coliin, houso .surgeon at the Hospital, said that deceased was'brought to the operating theatre bv Dr Carswell about 5.10 p.m.. the child being in a -moribund condition. Dr Batchelor made a rapid examination and performed the operation of trachelotomy, and other measures were resorted to, but the boy died at 5.20. Dr Drennan said tli.it at the post mortem he found the lower part cMho windpipe and the main branches of the bronchial tubes plugged with a. material resembling kapok, and a shred of kapok in the stomach. The verdict was that death was caused accidentally by suffocation.