DEATH OF WIDOWER.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 215, 10 September 1940, Page 4

DEATH OF WIDOWER.

SUFFOCATED BY SMOKE. Death by asphyxiation resulting from fire wag returned by the coroner, Mr. F. K. Hunt, at an inquest to-day into the death of Albert Bayly Smith, clerk, aged 66. Deceased, a widower, lived at 13, Maungawhau Road, Newmarket. Ernest Albert Ander, an officer of the Auckland Metropolitan Fire Board, said he attended a fire at 15, Maungawhau Road at 9.50 p.m. on August 3, and in a bedroom found the deceased lying on a bed. The clothes were thrown back as though deceased had tried to get up. Witness removed him to the lawn outside, where resuscitation methods were applied until an ambulance arrived. He was taken to the Auckland" Hospital, where it was found life was extinct. No fire had entered the room of deceased, but it was filled with dense smoke. The fire had started in a room occupied by Misses Elsie and Joan Flavell. The young women who occupied another room in the house, said that before going out that evening they had each smoked a cigarette and had placed the match used and the butts of the cigarette on an ash tray. They saw nothing inflammable near the tray and when they left the room there was no sign of fire.