THAMES MINING FATALITY

New Zealand Herald, Volume L, Issue 15201, 15 January 1913, Page 8

THAMES MINING FATALITY

CASE OF MISADVENTURE.

HEAVIER TIMBERING SUGGESTED.

■ * , OWN ■ CORRESPONDENT.]

. .■:.■/ -.;,:• Thames, Tuesday. The inquest on the bodies of the two men killed in the New Sylvia mine on Saturday was continued and completed to-day. Evidence was given by the manager, foreman, shift-bosses, and,the'men working on other shifts in the stope where the accident happened. The evidence of the two. men, E. Trainer and--A. Burns, who worked in the same place on the day previous to the accident, was to the effect that when they knocked off they left the stope all secure in every way. '

The evidence of Mr. Crosbie, the day shift-boss, showed that ho visited. this stopo on Saturday morning and stayed there until about eleven o'clock, and when ho left everything appeared to be quite safe, the faeo being then quite solid. At about half-past one o'clock a man named J. McGuinn, who was engaged in the level below, trucking, heard a sound as of something falling, but paid no particular attention to it, as he thought it was, merely a run of quartz in the pass from which he was trucking. It is evident now that this must have been the fall in the stopo which buried the two men. No definite idea can be formed as to how the accident actually happened, but it was the opinion of all the witnesses that a heavy fall had come down on to the back of the timbers from above, and the weight "of this had broken one of the cap pieces, which in turn had carried away the other .sets with them and that the fall had been sudden and without any warning, so that the two men working there had no chance to get clear. The whole of the officials and men in evidence stated that the ground was well and safely timbered in every way, and the accident was quite unaccountable. Both of the men killed were experienced and careful miners. The jury, after retiring for. about threequarters of an hour, returned the following verdict—" That the deceased, David .Christie and Ernest Joseph Senior met their death by suffocation as the result of an accidental collapse of a section of the timbers and stope in which they were working, and that no one is blameworthy for the occurrence. In the light of the experience gained by the accident, and the evidence of the various witnesses, the jury recommends that heavier timber be used in future, that the sets be studded top and bottom, and that spreaders be. inserted between each set in the future."