FATALITY IN A LIFT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19718, 18 August 1927, Page 10

FATALITY IN A LIFT.

.POSTAL EMPLOYEE KILLED. CRUSHED BETWEEN FLOORS. NO WITNESSES OF ACCIDENT. A fatality occurred in the Chief Post Office yesterday morning, when Mr. Thomas Robert Alfred Smith, married, agccl 38, of 45, Cardvvell Street, Onehnnga. was crushed between the basement and ground floor while working a goods lift at the back of the building. The accident was not seen by any of the employees, although it is believed Mr. Smith slipped when entering the lift at the basement and seized the control switch : which carried the lift to the mail room floor above before it stopped. Mr. Smith took a parcel to the basement and returned to the lift with some papers in one hand for delivery to the mail room on the ground floor. There are no doors to the goods lift, and it is believed that when the unfortunate man slipped he grasped the control to steady himself. Before he could pull himself bade into the moving elevator by holding on to the switch he had been crushed between the lift and the ground floor level. The lift came to rest a few inches above the ground floor, with the victim's head and shoulders inside and his legs protruding below. Medical aid was summoned immediately, but it was apparent that death had been instantaneous. Part of the floor of the lift and of the mail room had to be cut away before the body could be released. Mr. Smith had been in the Postal Department since 1905, and had served at Huntiy. Brunnerton, in the South Island, and at Auckland. He had resigned from the Civil Service, and it. was his intention to commence in business on his own account at Onehifcga, on August 27. He was recently employed as a postman in the Epsom-Mount Eden district, and was carrving out relief duty on the goods lift until he left. He leaves a wife and three children.