LITTLE GIRL’S DEATH

Evening Star, Issue 20316, 26 October 1929, Page 10

LITTLE GIRL’S DEATH

RESULT OF SCALDS An inquest on Ava May Fraser, aged about 2J years, who was severely scalded at her home at Outram on Thursday, and who died yesterday morning in the Dunedin Hospital, was held yesterday at the hospital before Mr lit. W. Bundle, S.M. Sergeant Wade represented the police. Herbert Fraser, father of the deceased, gave evidence of identification, and stated that ho was sent for at his work on Thursday morning. On returning home he found that the child had been scalded. Dr Wylie was called immediately, and after examining the child lie ordered her removal to the hospital. Witness and his wife brought her to Dunedin and saw her admitted. Martha Fraser, tho mother of the child, said > that on Thursday morning she half-filled a bucket with boiling water and placed it on the kitchen floor, standing beside it whilst she placed a pot on the range. The child was playing about on the floor, and her dress, catching in the handle of the bucket, overturned it, with tho result that the contents were spilled over her back and legs. Witness at once removed her clothes and sent for the doctor, who arrived s’ flv afterwards.

Dr E. Butler, house surgeon at Dunedin Hospital. said that he examined the child at the hospital shortly after 11 o’clock on Thursday morning, and found her to lie ■mffenng from extensive burns on the back from the shoulders to the buttocks, and less severe burns on the thighs and legs, fully one third of the surface of the body being affected. She was also suffering from shock. Treatment for the burns and the shock was immediately given and continued. There was a temporary improvement, but the child sank and died at 7.45 o’clock on tho following morning. In witness’s opinion the cause of death was shock and toxemia following extensive burns on tho body, the injuries being such as would be caused by boiling water. The Coroner found that the deceased died from shock following extensive burns caused by the accidental overturning of a bucket of boiling water.