BOY’S DEATH

Southland Times, Issue 25303, 5 June 1935, Page 8

BOY’S DEATH

INQUEST HELD i .ELECTROCUTED WHILE PLAYING ■MYSTERIOUS AFFAIR (Per United Press Association.) Auckland, June 4. Evidence concerning the death of Ronald Rudd, aged 5J years, who was electrocuted at his parents’ home at Blockhouse Bay, was given before Mr W. R. McKean S.M. to-day. Annie Metcalf, grandmother of the dead boy, said that yesterday morning her grandson and another child were playing in the back yard near the washhouse. Ronald was missed and shortly afterwards was found behind a galvanized iron shed. He was lying on his right side with his right arm by his side, and his left arm over his chest. His eyes \vere shut. He was stretched out at full length and appeared to be dead. He was not wearing boots or stockings and was found lying on long wet grass. Leaning against the shed was a piece of an old iron bed-stead. The boy’s mother said her son’s right leg was burned and that there were bums across the inside of the fingers of the right hand. There were two separate electric wires from the house to the shed, but* they were high up and it would have been impossible for the boy to reach them. It appeared that the boy had been playing with the old bedstead which was lying against the shed. There were no electric wires on the property that the boy could have touched, and he could not have got inside the shed as it' was locked. The inquiry was adjourned.