ELEVATOR FATALITY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 14235, 4 December 1909, Page 8

ELEVATOR FATALITY.

CONCLUSION OF INQUEST 1 DEATH CAUSED BY NEGLEOT J As a result of the, lift accident at' v a£fS ; ! ing in Queen-street, on 1908, the victim of which, Arnold oS more, an electrical engineer, -residiuSl Mount Eden, died at tbe hospital « * •' vember 18 last, a verdict tantamount£ one of manslaughter against a-laigS' who Has left the Dominion was br<Zj! in by the Coroner's jury yesterday. '. The inquest opened on November*) and was adjourned until yesterday, «t jC Criterion Hotel, before Mr. Gretlbarf district Coroner. Formal evidence (J was taken on the first occasion. * ' , Robert Cairns, an employee of the fiW of A. and T. Burt at'the time of ijj , accident, deposed that he was working (J that afternoon at the top of the lift, Jl beside the motor, under deceased's order, The cage was hanging on the chain lacy,, Witness lowered the cage by the tiddj three times (it being then independent of' any power) and it stopped at. the «a% place on each occasion. It was SwiijjU on its own ropes. He could not see wjj was going on below, but hoard deceased. | call out to a labourer, Wilfred - Bdftj'jr Barker, who was at the bottom of the lift, well, to clear the weight. H c then told witness to clear away the tackle; and when this had been done, deceased said ho would go down and get into the cam,' When he gave tho word, witness was to put in the switch. Witness was left Vi look after tho motor and switch. The putting in of the latter would enable de-: ceased to have control of the machinery. After witness put in his switch as direct. Ed, "deceased must have put his switch' in and started to go down. "I do not think the cage had descended more than I4ft,'!! continued witness, "when I heard a clatter. The four ropes, one after another I drew out of their mechanical grips at a fair speed over the shear wheel. 1 ; .Almost at the same instant the cage, with''deceased in it, crashed down at the bolted of the well. I turned off the,powjr*a,s I saw the cage was going." Witness added ter. The four ropes, one after another,i ropes ecsaped from their mechanical grips' was because of undue strain put upon them through the non-removal of. the chock, » piece of kauri. Deceased alone had the management of the safety clutches, and witness could not, 6ay why they t- did [not t come into operation. It was the duty of .• the man Barker to remove the chock when deceased called out to him to "clear th« weights." He could have done so. Had it been removed the ropes would not hareleft their mechanical grips. - In April last . Barker told .witness he thought of going to Capetown. After ' the ) , accident witness examined the cage and found the chock still in the weights. " " ' , 'Malcolm Stewart : Allan, engine-tunfer, -1 who was working on the same job' and near the previous witness at the time of the accident, corroborated the latter's evidence. • • '. '~ \ : Leonard Charles Sparrow, electrical en-' gineer, and manager of ; the electrical department at A. and T. Burt's, deposed to having examined" the /cagei after the Oc- . | currenoc.lt was badly, damaged, '■ and' in falling had struck a cask that had' been left in the pit of the well. Witness' 1 went on to describe the condition in 1 ; which he found the gear generally, and expressed the opinion that the non-re-| moval of the chock was the initial caps* of the accident. 'If,H however, the springs of the safety clutches had been adjusted) to working position he considered that the, car would not have dropped. Deceased) 'told him that, he himself * had' fit the, safety gear out of action in order 1 to; "allow the cage to descend. On January, IB the same safety gear was, after repairs, used and tested, and, on the ropes toeing cut, the cage only dropped Jin. This proved that it was quite, safe. YTiUivas believed Barker was now in South Africa. 1 Dr. S. A. Bull said that the cause of death was septic nephritis, the result of injuries to the spinal cord. • A verdict was returned in accord*'*'* with the medical evidence, and the jury added a clause to the effect that " Arnold Gilmore came to his rkath through Uri neglect or Wilfred Edgar Barker." ■ v-k;,' ■'.