ACCIDENTS AND DEATHS

Evening Star, Issue 19762, 12 January 1928, Page 4

ACCIDENTS AND DEATHS

ELECTROCUTED. An inquest to ascertain the cause of the death of Maurice Robinson Halle, an engine driver, employed at the time of his demise (Sunday, December 18) by the Waikato Valley Dairy Company, was held at Hamilton 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 whether death had resulted from heart failure or electrocution. Alexander Murdoch Bellamy, electrical inspector, said that on the morning following the fatality ho had inspected the Waikato Valley Dairy Company’s factory. He tested the flexible cord of the portable lamp, and found that the flex was making contact with the brass socket of a lampholder. That would cause a defect liable to give a person touching the copper shield of the portable lamp a shock. The Coroner said there were two unsatisfactory features about the case. The first was tliat the apparatus was interfered with by a person unqualified to interfere with it, and who left it in a somewhat dangerous condition. It was in that condition when the deceased took possession of it for the purpose of his work. The second feature was that there was no satisfactory evidence that this particular apparatus was ever inspected or tested. It was certainly in a dangerous condition for the work for which it was used. A verdict that the deceased was accidentally electrocuted was returned.— Press Association. STEWART ISLAND TRAGEDY. The inquest concerning the death of Andrew Josey, who was found battered to deatli at Stewart Island on December 14 was held at the island yesterday. The jury returned a verdict that the deceased met his death about 4 a.m. on December 14 through shock and loss of blood due to injuries received at the hand of Arthur Valentine. (Valentino died suddenly in gaol.) DEATH BY POISONING. Ellen Thom Dougherty, an inmate of the Rotorua Sanatorium, suffering from nervous breakdown, while absent from the institution is supposed to have taken poison. She died in the sanatorium later. She had been to see her husband, a returned soldier, who was badly crippled. At the inquest the jury returned a verdict that deceased met her death on Tuesday, January 10,' from the effects of a dose of strong iodine, self-administered while temporarily insane.—Press Association. CHILD DROWNED IN CASK. While playing at the back door of his mother’s homo at Gisborne Norman Douglas Binder, aged two years, fell into a cask of water and was drowned. The child was found head down in the v«*ik.—Prere Association. ! ,. ■