A CHILD’S DEATH.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 144197, 13 September 1913, Page 2

A CHILD’S DEATH.

THE RESULT OF SCALDING. . A child named Joseph James Mad* dock, aged 21 years, and son of JosephFrederick Maddock, farmer of Inglewood, died in the New Plymouth Hospital on Friday. The coroner, Mr. A. . Orooke, S.M., held an inquest into the circumstances surrounding the death at the Courthouse this morning. The father of the child gave evidence that on Friday, sth.. inst., at about 6 p.m., h© put some hay tea in a kerosene tin on an open fireplace in the front room of his nouse. He went outside to attend to a sick cow and his wife ivas also outside. The child, with three older children, the eldest about 6 years, was playing in the room. Shortly afterwards his wife called out to him and on rushing inside he found the boy Joseph had been scalded From what he could gather he thought the child must have pulled the tin over him. He did not notice where' th« tin was lying when he went into the room. Ho did not think the water was as hot as it has since proved it must have been. The child had on a woollen jersey and a thick pair of pants. ,On examination ho found that the child was badly scalded. Witness took the child tq Dr. .Gault at Inglewood, and on his instructions at once took the .sufferer to tho .Now Plymouth Hospital; where it died yesterday. Witness did not think it unsafe to leave the children Ijjve he did. They had always been used to the fire, arid had never fore interfered with it.

Frances Eva Haddock/the mother of the child, told, how the girl had called out to her, telling that, the bov was scalded. When she rushed in, the boy was lying: some distance from t£ie fire and the tin of hay tea was upset. : She thought the whole of the contents of the tin, which was about three parts full, must have spilled over I 'tho child. David Storer Vv f ylie, acting medical superintendent of the New Plymouth Hospital, stated that the child was admitted to the hospital about 7 p.m. on, September 6. lie was suffering from extensive scalds of a severe character, affecting the whole of the body and both legs. He was also entering severely from shock. The child’s' condition was hopeless on admission, and he died at 2 o’clock yesterday, after having lingered nearly a week. The injuries would quite possibly have been caused in the manner supposed, and the water or tea might not have been boiling. • . , In answer to tho coroner, th© doctor said that the only course was to bring the child to-the hospital.- If there had been any ehance of the child’s living, that chance had been given him. - The coroner brought in a vordact that the child died from being accidentally scalded by pulling a tin of hot hay tea over himself, tho consequent iiw juries being the cause of death.