GAS=TRAINING TEST

Wairarapa Times-Age, 30 December 1939, Page 9

GAS=TRAINING TEST

AIR RAID WARDEN’S CLAIM. ALLEGED DAMAGE TO EYE. LONDON, December 1. Britain s first case of an air raid warden claiming heavy damages for an injury alleged to have been incurred during training was begun this week in the Court of Session. Edinburgh. James Ritchie Dobson, headmaster of a village school, is suing Lanarkshire Country Council and a police constable for £2OOO damages because he alleges that his left eye has been permanently harmed during gas training. It was decided that the case should go for trial. Mr Dobson states in his action that he agreed to undertake an A.R.P. course at the request of the police. On September 26, 1938, his class were asked to pass through a motor-van converted for use as a gas-chamber. On a spirit stove inside it was placed a capsule of chlor-acetophenone, or tear gas. The stave was lit by Constable McClirc and the capsule started giving off fumes. Each member of the class had to go through the chamber wearing a gas mask. The constable then told them they should go through it without their masks, but assured them that the only ill-effects would be smarting of the eyes which would pass away in a short i time. Dobson stated that, relying on that assurance, he and other members I of the class passed through the chamber unprotected. Three days later he was attacked by a severe pain in his left eye. He consulted a specialist and was confined to bed for three weeks. He now suffered from keratitis (inflammation of the cornea), and it was anticipated that his left eye had been permanently damaged.