A FATAL FALL.

Otago Witness, Issue 3005, 18 October 1911, Page 63

A FATAL FALL.

INQUEST ON C. J. AYERS. An inquest was held at the Hospital on the 12th, before the. coroner (Mr C. O. Graham), into the circumstances surrounding the death of Charles John Ayers, who met with an accident at Hudson's biscuit factory on September 21. Ayers was working on a ladder, iwihen a rung broke, and precipitated him on to the edge pf a trolly. He died at the Hospital from his injuries on Monday last. Mr Hanlon appeared' to represent Hudson and Co., and Mr Callan for the relatives of the deceased. Stationsergeant King represented the police. Robert Walter Edgar, house surgeon at the Dunedin Hospital, said that the deceased was taken to the Hospital on September 21. Ho was then suffering from shock, and witness was given to understand that he had fallen from a ladder. He was put under Dr Stanley Batchelor's care, and on examination it was found that he had been severely lacerated about the abdomen. The patient progressed well until the 7th inst., when he showed symptoms cf distention of the bowel. On the Bth there were further bad symptoms, and on Monday, the Sth, it was deemed advisable to have the patient operated on. Dr Newlands performed the operation, and found complications, rendering it necessary to cut out a piece of the bowel. This was accordingly done, and the patient woe returned to the ward in a collapsed condition. He died at 11 a.m. the following day from intestinal obstruction and shock. The handle of a hand-truck would have caused the injuries received. To Mr Callan: He thought deceased had been brought in first about 5 p.m. Arthur I) u rant Hudson, of the firm of Hudson and Co (ltd.), biscuit manufacturers, stated that the deceased was a workman in his employ. On September 21 deceased went up a ladder to replace a belt that had come oft a pulley. The ladder waa a movable wooden one belonging to Turnbull and Jones. It bad been left there after that firm had been working on the. lift. No one seemed to have seen the accident. Der ceased came out of the building, and said to witness, "I have burst myself." He said he was coming down the ladder and it broke, and he " landed on the truck." Witness examined him, sent for a cab, and had him sent to the Hospital with one of the clerks. He found that the third rung from the bottom of the ladder _ had given way at one side, and was resting on the second bottom one. It was part of the deceased's duties to replace the belt if it slipped. To Mr Hanlon: There was a loose pulley if they wanted to stop the machine. Witness saw the young man several times at the Hospital, and had a conversation with him about the accident. He said he had gone up to replace the belt, and in coming down, when near the bottom, the- ladder broke. He said he had neither jumped nor fallen, but had " sort of stepped" off it, and landed on the truck. The third rung would be about 2ft 6in or 3ft from the ground. He said one of the other boys had left the truck there. To Mr Callan: When witness went in the truck had been removed. The ladder had. been there since Turnbull and Jones had started to erect the lift, and they were not auite finished ye*. _ There were about a dozen people working close to the 6pot where the accident occurred. The firm's own ladder was in the same department on the day of the accident

To Station-sergeant King: Both handles of the truck were worn from constant use, and were pointed, Mary Ann Farmer, mother of the deceased by a former husband, gave evidence of identification.. Deceased was 27 years of age last June, and had had strong, robust. health. He had been about 14 years in Hudson's employ. The Coroner said he had perfectly understood the description of how the accident occurred, and he could come to no other conclusion than that the occurrence was purely accidental. The slipping of a belt off a pulley was a very common thing, and it seemed it was part of the deceased's duty to replace it. The ladder was evidently not a sound one, and this no doubt was the cause of the accident. Everything seemed to have boon done for the deceased that could have been done. He would record the cause of # death < as being shock from internal injuries received by accidentally failine on the handle of a truck. _ He did not think any blame could be said to attach to anyone in the matter. It was always impossible to tell what the condition was o'f the rungs of a ladder.