FATAL ACCIDENT AT WAIHI

New Zealand Herald, Volume XL, Issue 12240, 8 April 1903, Page 5

FATAL ACCIDENT AT WAIHI

THE INQUEST, [BY TELEGRAPH.OWN CORRESPONDENT.] Waihi, Tuesday. Tins morning, before Mr. William Forrest, coroner, an inquiry was held into the accident in the Waihi Company's mine, by which John Landrigan met with his death. Richard Lindsay deposed that deceased and he went to No. & level together about, ten minutes to eight o'clock yesterday morning. They were sinking a winze from No. 6to No. 7 levels. He lowered deceased down in the bucket. He went down to fill the stone that had been broken out at the bottom of the winze. The bucket was attached to a wire rope, and was about 18in from the top of -the winze when the rope broke. The depth of the winze would be about 33ft. Deceased could not have escaped the falling bucket unless he had seen it coming, and then he might have saved himself. He (witness) called out at once, but deceased would not have had time to get away. When witness got down to the bottom of the winze deceased was breathing. They had used the rope about a week. He did not know if it was new when they got it. He noticed no breakages in the roue before it gave way. The shift boss went through about ten minutes before the accident, and remarked that the rope was getting short, and that they (witness and deceased) must get another one. Deceased and witness had examined the rope in the morning before commencing work. They thought it was all right. Dr. Guinness said he was summoned to attend to the accident. He went to the No. 2 shaft, and waited there for some twenty minutes at the mouth, when Landrigan, who was quite dead, was brought to the. surface. The base of the skull was fractured, widen would have caused death. Jas. L. Gilr.tcur (mine manager for the Waihi Gold Mining Company) deposed that he knew the winze in which deceased had been engaged. The last time he saw the winze, previous to the accident, was oa Saturday at four o'clock, everything _ was then going on all right. He was of opinion that the break had occurred inside the sacking, where the wire was bent on to the ring of the bucket. Ii a man wanted a new rope, and asked the shift boss for the same, it would be supplied within half an hour or so. Not to his knowledge had any men on application been refused new gear in cases of safety. Undoubtedly, the rope had been cut by a sharp piece of quartz coming in contact with it. Wm. Jones deposed that he was a shiftboss in the Waihi mine. The rope had been put on some time last week. The rope was not new. It had been used to sink a part of cue winze before that. He considered the rope to have been sound and safe. He had inspected the rope the morning of the accident. He had not inspected the rope right at the eye. The coroner said he did not oropose to make any remarks. ' There did not seem to be two opinions about it. The rope was chewed from use, which, it was quite possible, might have been due to a piece of quartz cutting it. A measure of blame, he thought was attachabia to the shift boss and to the workmen themselves. The foreman said to examine the rope properly it should have been taken off altogether. The verdict was that deceased met his death in a winze in No. 6 level oi the No. 2 shaft of the Martha mine, at Waihi, about half-past eight on the morning of April 6, 1903, by the breaking of a wire rope which had been worn at the handle of the bucket until too weak to carry the strain.