CHILD'S SAD FATE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22356, 29 February 1936, Page 12

CHILD'S SAD FATE

DEATH FROM BURNS PLAYINO WITH HATCHES NIGHTDRESS IGNITED While playing with matches early yesterday morning, Anthony Edwin George Herrick, aged two years, son of Mr. and Mrs. D. Herrick, of 3a Sanders Avenue, Takapuna, suffered fatal burns as a result of the nightdress he was wearing being set on fire. Mr. and Mrs. Herrick were startled shortly after 6.30 to hear screams coming from the room their son occupied with a sister, aged three years, and on quickly investigating found the boy's night attire in flames. Mr. Herrick immediately tore the .clothing otf the child, who was badly burned about the body. After Dr. P. Andrew, of Takapuna, had been called, the boy was taken in a St. John ambulance to the Auckland Hospital, where he was admitted in a serious condition. Death occurred early in the afternoon. No matches were kept in the boy's bedroom, and it is thought he got out of bed and took a box from the gas stove in the kitchen. Some burned and unburned matches were found lying near the boy's bed, the quilt of which was scorched in one place, and it is believed he baxl gone back to bed, where he began striking the matches. An inquest will be opened this morning.