PETROL EXPLODES

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 80, Issue 307, 28 December 1937, Page 7

PETROL EXPLODES

CHILD’S FATAL BURNS. EVIDENCE OF LORRY DRIVER. MISHAP AT FILLING STATION. HAMILTON, Dec. 23. The opinion that a motor-truc> fitted with its petrol tank and battery alongside each other under the driver’s seat was a dangerous vehicle was expressed by the coroner, Mr. F. W. Platts, at an inquest held to-day into the death of John Robeit Scurr, aged five years, who died of burns in the Waikato Hospital on December 7. The boy, who was lhe son of Mr. and Mrs. William Scurr, of Rotowaro, was envtioped in flames when the petrol which was being poured into the tank of a motor-truck ignited. Evidence was given by Sydney Naismith Gubb, lorry driver, that he was filling the tank of his lorry at Rotowaro on December 6. The boy had been in the back of the truck but was standing on the road near it when the brass nozzle of the petrol pump hose touched the positive terminal of the battery, which was slightly above the level of the tank and within six inches of it. There was a spark and the benzine ignited. Witness dropped the nozzle and a gallon of petrol poured out on to the ground. The boy’s clothes were splashed and he was badly burned about the body. A motor electrician, Reginald Darcy Dempster, described the juxtapositior of the petrol tank and the battery ir the truck as dangerous. Few truck; were now equipped in this way, h« said, most trucks having the tank at the side. Witness considered the batteries should have a wooden or rubber covering. The coroner returned a verdict of accidental death. He suggested that children should not be permitted to stand near petrol filling stations when motor vehicle tanks were being filled, and that the batteries of vehicles situated near the should be suitably covered.