FALL FROM TRESTLE

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXVI, 10 June 1935, Page 7

FALL FROM TRESTLE

DEATH OF MR E. M. WILDMAN EVIDENCE AT INQUEST After falling from a trestle a distance of twelve feet to the ground while working on the side of the ship Arahura on the Patent Slip at Wellington, Edward Murrell Wildman, aged 49, a ship’s boatswain, was immediately struck by one end of a 1301 b plank which came off the trestle. He received severe internal and head injuries, from which he died in the Wellington Hospital three days later. thiftk it' was 'purely, accidental,’’ said the . Coroner (Mr E. Gilbertson, J.P.) at "the inquest, and he returned a- finding that Wildman died from injuries sustained through accidentally falling off the scaffolding. One of his broken ribs/ 1 said the Coroner, had penetrated a lung, and that was uie cause of death. Pulmonary thrombosis was the cause of. death, said Dr. J. 0. Mercer, assistant pathologist at the Wellington Hospital, who performed a post-mortem examination. The injuries were of a particularly severe nature, he added. William George Luke. labourer employed at the Patent Slip, said that at about 10 a.m. on Thursday he was working with the deceased, who was standing on a plank supported by trestles at the side of the ship. The deceased started to climb down one of the trestles, holding on to one of the planks to steady himself. The plank shaped off the trestle and Wildman fell face downwards on the ground, with the plank across his back. In i the opinion of the witness the fall was caused by the ignorance of the deceased as to how to move about on the ; trestle. He was wearing rubber sea boots and the plank was wet with rain. One end of the plank fell on his back and the other remained on the trestle. Donald McLachlan, a seaman on the Arahura, said the deceased told him after the accident that his foot had slipped and that he had caught hold of a loose plank to maintain bis balance. The deceased had often been on scaffolding previously, said Robert John Play, the master of the ship. ‘‘The method of erecting scaffolding for maintenance work at the Evans Bay slipway has been in existence over ai; long period of years,” said Louie Fenton, a Marine Department inspector. ‘‘So far as I can ascertain the planking and trestles were in good condition at the time of the accident. From inquiries made I have arrived at the opinion that the primary cause of this unfortunate mishap was probably the deceased’s wearing gumboots and standing on a wet surface. . . .” The witness added that the plank would weigh about 1301 b and that there never had been any arrangement to fasten- the planks. He had never heard of an accident of this sort before. “A plank weighing 1301 b would he pretty hard to shift,” remarked the Coroner. Sergeant C. Duke conducted the inquest, and Mr J. M. Dale appeared for relatives of the deceased.