GARDENER’S DEATH

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26783, 28 May 1948, Page 2

GARDENER’S DEATH

MEDICAL REFEREE’S REPORT ACCEPTED COMPENSATION CLAIM FAILS The Compensation Court —Judge Ongley—has given judgment for the. defendants in the action taken by the PubLc Trustee, as executor of the will ot Andrew Melrose, late of Fairfield, gardener, against Louis Francis McCormack and Norah Gertrude McCormack, of Dunedin hotelkeepers, arising out of the death of ihe deceased on September 13, 194 a. AJthe conclusion of the hearing, couns 1 conferred and agreed mat Dr P. P-*nch. Wellington should set as medical il ferec, and the court submitted the medical evfdence to him. In the judgment issued yesterday Judge Ongley said he accepted the report, and reserved leave to the defendants to apply for costs "It is clear from the evidence ( of Di A D. G. Blanc, who was the omy one of the medical witnesses who had even seen or examined the deceased, that the deceased was suffering from heart ais»msc orobablv coronaly sclerosis and that ne hadVbcen for some time disease, a candidate ior sudden death, Di Lynch stated in Iris report. Confirmation of this is got from the report ef Dr M. McGeorgc, who saw and exaini.Kd the deceased about tire time he went to work for the defendants. His account is that of a man suffering from advanced coronary disease. In these circumstances it is not surprising that the deceased died when he did.” .... . . Eh Lynch added that the conflict of medical evidence “ seems to me to oe upon one point only, namely, whethei the actual onset of ventricular iib.jlla- ■ tion on the morning of Septembei 13, was precipited or excited by effort or was entirely unrelated to effort.” He doubted " whether it could boshown that an effort which is controllable by tbe patient in the sense that he could cease the effort on the onset of pam, could have any effect in precipitating fa ml ventricular fibrillation.”