A TRAGEDY

Hokitika Guardian, 15 September 1937, Page 6

A TRAGEDY

YOUTH BURIED IN TUNNEL ; METAL LOADING FATALITY i (Per Press Association —Copyright/ WAIROA, September 15. , A shocking fatality occurred at the metal dump near the railway bridge at Awamate late yesterday afternoon, when Harold Clifford Cocks, hotter known ak : Eric Daken, aged 21, who I resided with his mother and stepfather, IMr and Mrs / Daken, of Kopu Road, Wairoa, was loading a truck with metal and became trapped; when the, roof of the tunnel in which he was working -collapsed He was buried in shingle and broken timbers: Clocks was employed by Smith. Bros., contractors to the Public- Works Department, who are operating a shingle dredging plant at Awamate. Cocks vas engaged in loading shingle into some trucks. A cutting lias been constructed and roofed with timber and the metal is conveyed across the river by a wire rope and dropped on to the tunnel roof, beneath which the trucks are run and loaded by means of a chute in the roof. The whole of the overhead : structure 'collapsed without warning and Cocks had no time to jump clear, being trapped in a truck over which tons of shingle and timber fell. Another member of the firm of Smith Bros, who was nearby had a narrow escape' 'being buried in the shingle up to his hip. It was some time before Cocks could lie extricated and when eventually freed was found to bo dead. It is thought that death was instantaneous.