PIERCED HIS BRAIN.

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 5 February 1926, Page 7

PIERCED HIS BRAIN.

AIINERI’S FATAL, INJURY. AND HE KEPT ON WORKING. SYDNEY, Jan. 29. Although his skull had been pierced by the point of a pick at Sugarloai Colliery, Ackland, near Toowoomba, Queensland. Archibald Fletcher (44) refused to believe, it, and kept on working. He collapsed and died soon afterwards, however. He received the injury in a peculiar manner. Fletcher was working in a stooping position when a lump of coal fell and struck a short-handled pick. The pick hew up and struck r letchei on the temple, piercing his skull. It evidently entered the, brain and caused his forehead at that part to become numb. . , , , At any rate, Fletcher refused to believe that the point of the pick had entered his- skull, and lie kept on woilcincr. He hlled three skips with coal and then went to the .surface to knock off. On bis way home he collapsed suddenly, took convulsions, ,and hemorrhage 'set in. A doctor and ambulance raccul to the spot, but he died within two minutes. It is stated that the size of the hole made by the point of the pick was less than half an inch. A, poignant feature of the occurrence is that '"Fletcher’s wife is in the Toowoomba Maternity Hospital with a week-old baby.