A WATERSIDERS'S DEATH.

Press, Volume LV, Issue 16424, 18 January 1919, Page 4

A WATERSIDERS'S DEATH.

CORONERS FINDING AND RIDER

The enquiry into the circumstances surrounding tho death at the Christchurch Hospital, on Docember 23rd, as a result of an accident on the steamer Rosamond, at- Lyttelton. on December llhh, of "William James Chapman, labourer. aged ol years, who resided at JP Fi«hor street, Bockcnham, was continued before Mr■ 8. E. McCarthy, Coroner at-the Courthouse yesterday morning'. Mr C. K. Salter appeared for the relatives ol the deceased and Mr J Flood for the Lyttelton Waterside Workers' Union. Senior-Sergeant JackS son conducted the case for the police. I The t'nion Steam Ship Company, the | owners of the Rosamond, were not re- ! presented. , , Charles Houlton, a wharf labourer, said that he was working on the Rosamond on December 19th. as also was Chapman. They were called up from l>elow to shift, some iron plates. A boat was swinging from davits over the wharf from the ship, and a man named Ralph was working in the boat. I hey were working tinder the boat. They laid a ladder flat with rungs undermost from tho ship to the wharf. The deck of the ship was practically level with the wharr. On the ladder they slid the plates which they were taking from the hold. The keel of the boat was about four feet above the level ot the wharf, and they had to stoop to pass under it. Whilst deceased was passing under the boat it fell between tho deceased and himself. Deceased was on the wharf side of the boat and witness on the ship side He found deceased lying parallel with the boat, and ho pointed to his right hip; as his lniured part. Shepherd, one of the Lnion Company's permanent employees, u as in charge of the workers. There were other ways of getting the iron ashore besides going under the boat, but tha was "Jie easiest way. The boat was 20ft long, and swung from the davits by rope falls. The ropes were perfectly new and he could not understand why the boat fell. They were not ordered to go tinder the boat. Hie only order he could remember Shepherd giving was that they should come up and put the plates off the deck and place them into a truck on the wharf. Thej had previously shifted the plates from tho hold to the deck. They slid all the plates, large and small, along the ladder. Under the circumstances it would have been much safer not to go under the boat, but he had often worked under boats before, and he had never seen one fall. He did not remember anyone. ever previously working in a boat when ho was going under it. It would be more dangerous working under a l>oat whon someono was working in it than if no one was in it. To Mr Salter: Chapman was employed by the Union Company. The foreman saw the way in which they were going under the boat, and no one warnod them of the danger. The accident was entirely due to the l>oat falling. To Mr Flood: The wharf was open to the general public. When the tide was higher it was possible for any member of the public to walk under the boat. They could have met with an accident similar to Chapman's. To the Coroner: Chapman had nothing to do with the work in the boat. Shepherd was in charge of Ralph, as well a/5 of the rest of them. William Campbell Ralph said that on December 19th he was cleaning out the boat in ouestion on the Rosamond. He was working in the after-part of the boat, picking up some dirt, and in rising, his back caught the lock and the boat fell. He had no warning to he careful of locks whilst he was working in the boat. After the accident a

lashing was put. round the lock to provent it from giving a} • A lashing was aho put round both ends of the boat and it was lashed to the davits To' Mr Salter: Ho did not see the men workinj; «nd«- the boat, but knew that thev wore thorc. To Mr'yiood: He was not told before he went into the boat to be careful of the releasing S c *J. r .- . C'vril Arnold King, a final year student acting «? house-surgeon at the Cbristchurch Hospital, said that an vxan.ination showed that Chapman ,s al>domen was somewhat distended. H.s pulse was 10S. and ms temperature PH. He experienced pain on compression nt the crest of the iliac bones, and u extended across the lower part o, tl.o abdomen. Tho heart a.ul lungs were normal. Later. Dr. bandston operated. Further injuries consistent with the dec-eased being struck by n falling boat with some violence, wore disclosed. Deceased died at 11.13 p.m. on December ~ The Coroner returned a verdict thai the deceased died as a result ot injuries received in an accident that happened to him whilst- working on > tho s.s. Rosamond, on December IJth, 1918, and attached a rider to the effect that at the time of the accident there was on tho ship, owned by the Lnion Steam Shin Company, Ltd.. a life-boat filling on davits the releasing gear of which had been unfastened, thus rendering the position of the boat on the davit insecure; that whilst the leleasing gear was in this imperlect condition an employee of the company, unskilled in the mechanism of .davits, and their releasing gear, was placed to work in tho same boat: that whilst the boat was thus hanging insecurely in the davits the deceased and other workmen of the companv were passing to and fro under tho boat to the knowledge of their foreman; that it fell from the davits with violence and injured tho deceased; that as a consequence of such injuries he died; that tho falling of the boat was caused partly by the unsafe condition of the releasing gear and the unwitting action of the employee in striking it with his back when rising from his work in tho boat.