CORONER CRITICISES STATE AND BOROUGH

Wanganui Chronicle, 7 October 1946, Page 7

CORONER CRITICISES STATE AND BOROUGH

HEMLOCK POiSON CASE (Special) Hawera, Oct. 4. Both the State, which enacted laws against noxious weeds, including hemlock, and the borough council, which was supposed to administer the law, were to blame, said the Hawera district coroner, Mr. W. A. Grant, when he held an inquest concerning the death of Lynette Bessie Dymond, aged four and a-half years. Mr. Grant returned a verdict that the child had died on September 10 as the result of asphyxia, caused by eating an excessive amount of hemlock poisoning. The coroner said he had inspected the backyard of a State house In Dixon Street and found hemlock growing there. The weed was also prolific in a borough section over the fence of the house, and was in other backyards in the area. The State and the borough had set a bad example, and should rid the town of this potential danger to life.

Mrs. Joyce Mills said that she left her children playing with the Dymond children on the section at the rear of her home in Dixon Avenue. She was absent in town from 4.45 to 5.25 p.m., and on her return her daughter Robyn complained of feeling sick. Her eyes looked strange, and some of the other children said the younger ones had been eating weeds. She was told 'by a neighbour that, the weeds might have been the poisonous weed hemlock, whereupon she had the Dymond children take their sister home with a message that she would phone a doctor. “I phoned Dr. Rich and told him the circumstances, and he said to give my daughter some hot milk and put her to bed,” witness continued. Dr. Fitzgerald made an examination and ordered her removal to hospital. After I rang Dr. Rich I went to the Dymond house and told Mrs. Dymond snr., what I was told to do.”

Mrs. Josephine Agnes Dymond said her grandchild appeared to be very limp when put into bed. Mrs. Mills came later and told her Dr. Rich had advised that the children be given some hot milk and put to bed. Witness, looking in on the child several times, found her sleeping, but shortly before 7 p.m. the father went to the bedroom and found her dead. DOCTORS’ EVIDENCE

Details of a post-mortem examination were given by Dr. T. M. Fitzgerald, whose conclusions were that a large amount of recently eaten raw vegetable matter was identical with the poisonous hemlock, and that, the congested appearance of the body indicated death by asphyxia, resulting from profound paralysis of the muscles and nerves which enfeebled respiration.

“If the Dymond child had been given similar hospital treatment to that of the Mills child, would she have made a recovery?” the coroner asked witness.

Dr. Fitzgerald: She would have had a reasonable chance of recovery had the treatment been given immediate-

* Witness added that possibly tha Mills child was past the worst effects of the poisoning when treatment commenced and that, having consumed a smaller quantity, was already recovering. The coroner at this stage said he noticed Dr. John Rich in the court. If he would care to give a statement he could do so.

Dr. Rich, under oath, related what he remembered of Mrs. Mills’ request for advice because her child had been eating a weed, the symptoms she had described and the steps already taken to induce vomiting.

“I mentioned there were quite a lot of substances in the ga r den very irritating to children,” Dr. Rich continued. “I mentioned one case when, as a child, I made some tea out of a shrub and that I had been very sick after it. I told her if she was worried to let me know.

“From what Mrs. Mills told me I did not consider the child was very sick, and there was no strong evidence to show that the weed was of the hemlock type. I did not at any time tell Mrs. Mills that I had known tea to be made from hemlock. Mrs. Mills did not ask me to see the child.” In reply to Senior-Sergeant J. Edwards, Dr. Rich said he frequently received ( inquiries for advice over the telephone. He had had no case in Hawera where there was any uncertainty.