DEATH FROM SCALDS.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20281, 16 April 1934, Page 7

DEATH FROM SCALDS.

Inquest on Child Who Fell Into Copper.

A verdict that death was due to toxaemia and secondary shock, received aftetr accidentally falling into a copper of hot water at her parents’ residence, was returned at the inquest this afternoon into the death of Daphne Mavis June Broadhurst, aged five years and nine months. Charles Finlater Broadhurst, father of the child, said that on Friday evening he boiled a copperful of water in the back yard of his house at 20, Highsted Road, Papanui. When it was nearly boiling he took it off the fire and put it about eight feet from the fire. His daughter was poking pieces of grass on to the fire with a stick. When a bunch of grass flared up she stepped backward and fell into the copper, all but her legs, below the knees, and head and arms being scalded. She got out of the copper herself and ran towards him. Her mother removed the child’s clothes and wrapped her in a coat, and then went out to a store for some oil. When she returned, witness went out and phoned the ambulance, which arrived about eight o’clock and took the child to the hospital. His daughter was aged five years and nine months. She was usually a careful child, and only the flaring up of the grass in the fire could have caused her to step backwards, falling into the copper. Dr P. W. S. Riley, a house surgeon at the Christchurch Hospital, said that the girl was admitted to the hospital On Friday at 8.10 p.m. She was suffering from extensive scalds and secondary shock. She was treated in the usual manner. On the Saturday a blood transfusion was made, and the patient rallied. On the Sunday her condition was satisfactory, but in the evening she became worse and died at 10.5 p.m. Dr Riley added that it was not usual for patients of the girl’s age, suffering from scalds over more than half the body, to recover. The Coroner (Mr E. D. Mosley) then returned the verdict in accordance with the evidence.