“LIVE” RADIO SET CAUSES BOY’S DEATH

Northern Advocate, 2 December 1936, Page 5

“LIVE” RADIO SET CAUSES BOY’S DEATH

HGW AUCKLAND TRAGEDY OCCURRED

f Special to “Northern Advocate.’ 7 ']

AUCKLAND. This Day

The possibility that there were more radio sets wired in the same old fashioned way was commented on by the coroner. Mr Wyvern Wilson S.M., at the inquest into the death of John Roy Dormer, of 3 Hayden Avenue, who was electrocuted when he grasped the earth wire of a radio set while playing under a house in Manukau Road last week.

Robert Bruce Jenkins, lorry driver, said the set was repaired v twice in one day in October and he installed it himself when it was returned.

Eric Hutchinson, supply engineer for the power board, said he found that, owing to a wire being in the adaptor on the light, for which there was no provision, it was contacting a live terminal. This made the frame of the radio alive, as well as thb aerial and earth.

He considered the remedy would be to insist on the use of a double, instead of a treble flex connected with a lamp point.

The coroner, in returning a verdict of death due to shock arising from deceased’s coming into contact with a live wife, said there did not appear to be any evidence as to who was responsible for interfering with the flex.