KUT PRISONER'S DEATH.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20448, 30 June 1928, Page 26

KUT PRISONER'S DEATH.

SUCCUMBED DURING HIS TWENTY-FIFTH OPERATION. An echo of the siege of Kut was heard at an inquest held in London recently on a Folkestone motor lorry driver’s mate, Herbert Ernest Evans, who died under an operation at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital. Mrs Evans said her husband joined the army at the age of seventeen, and was taken prisoner at Kut. He told her that a Turk cut his throat with a Ghurka knife, and he had to wear a tube. Altogether he underwent twenty-five operations. On January 23, while in High street, Cheriton, he had a fit of coughing, which caused the tube to break. He was operated on at the Victoria Hospital, Folkestone, and on February 1 was transferred to St. Bartholomew’s Hospital. Dr Reginald H. Bettington, house surgeon, said part of the broken tube was found in the left bronchus, and the loft lung was completely collapsed. An operation was performed, and several attempts made to remove the obstruction, but it could not be dislodged. Sir Bernard Spilsbury said that the n.an had been living with only one lung, and it was rather small. The tube, which appeared to have been made of aluminium, had sharp points when it br ,ke, and had worked its way through the whole bronchus. There was an old scar extending from the breast bone to the chin. The coroner returned a verdict, of “ death by misadventure.”