FATAL BURNS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVIII, Issue 230, 27 August 1938, Page 6

FATAL BURNS.

STORY OF OCCURRENCE. Per Press Association. AUCKLAND, Aug. 26. The story of how a jeweller, Thomas Robert Ballantyne, aged 59, a married man with three children, rushed for help into a neighbouring shop with his clothes afire on the morning of May 30 was related to the Coroner (Mr F. K. Hunt) at the inquest to-day.-He died on Wednesday last in the Auckland Hospital. James E. Ballantyne gave evidence. His father, he said, was working alone at the rear of his shop pouring benzine into a basin. He was starting to clean a clock and when he found he had insufficient light in the room he climbed a ladder to open a wooden shutter, but when the ladder slipped he had to jump to save himself. As ho jumped ho knocked over the basin of benzine. Some of the liquid spilled on his clothes and some ran along the workbench to where a lighted cigarette was lying. It ignited, flames spread to his clothes. \ Running through to the front of the shop he tried to extinguish the flames with a coir mat unsuccessfully, and rushed into the shop adjoining. The Coroner’s finding will be given within the next few days.