ACCIDENTS AND FATALITIES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21544, 16 January 1932, Page 12

ACCIDENTS AND FATALITIES

CHILD FATALLY BURNED (Peb United Press Association.) HASTINGS, January 15. An inquest into the death of Bryan Hugh M'Cann, aged two and a-half years, who died in Royston Hospital on Wednesday as the result of burns received when his nightdress caught Are was held at Hastings this morning. Deceased was the son of James M'Cann, a farmer, of Pakowhai, Hastings, who gave evidence that at 7 a.m. on the day of the. fatality, he left the house to go to the milking shed two chains distant. His wife followed twenty minutes later, leaving the child playing at the back door. Three minutes afterwards the child came running to the shed with his flannelette nightdress alight. Witness immediately extinguished the flames and hurried the child to hospital. By some means the child had obtained a box of wax matches from the ledge above the bed in which the parents slept. According to the medical evidence the case was hopeless from the beginning. The jury returned a verdict that death was accidental, no blame being attachable to the parents.

WOMAN ACCIDENTALLY SHOT (Per United Press Association.) PALMERSTON N., January 15. At the inquest on the death of Mrs Gladys Rita Gedaon, aged 22, who died in hospital from a bullet wound in the stomach, Stephen Thomas Gedson, the husband of deceased, stated that she accompanied him to shoot rabbits, using an old Winchester rifle. The stock had been broken, and was bound round with string. He had two or three unsuccessful shots. Noticing that the string binding had come undone, he remarked to his wife, a short distance away, that the rifle was no good. He was holding the rifle in front of him with both hands, and was approaching his wife to show what was wrong with it. When within three yards the weapon suddenly exploded, though his finger was not near the trigger. His wife was struck by the bullet. He had no idea what made it go off. The police demonstrated how the looseness of the barrel, permitting it to move, would cause the rifle to discharge. Gedson stated that the weapon was a borrowed one. Though it had been registered, the police said that had the weapon been seen at the arms office in its damaged state it would have been impounded and registration refused. The coroner returned a verdict of accidental death, and an order wass.made for the destruction of the rifle.