MAN DIES FROM INJURIES

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22518, 28 September 1938, Page 16

MAN DIES FROM INJURIES

STRUCK BY FLYING ROCK BLASTING ACCIDENT AT WELLINGTON (PRESS ASSOCIATION TELEGRAM.) WELLINGTON, September 27. Struck by a flying rock when a shot was fired on the Moa Point works, Lyall Bay, this afternoon, Frederick Charles Liddy, a married man, aged 47, of 58 Breaker Bay road, died in hospital a little more than an hour later from severe head injuries. Several other men suffered minor injuries, not sufficient to require special attention.

Liddy was one of 40 men employed by the Wellington City Council on the work of taking the top off the point as an improvement to the Rongotai aerodrome. The rock, which vanes in character from grey stone to rotten rock of a most friable character, is being loosened with explosives, loaded into motor-trucks, and used to cover the sand at the exhibition site. The victim was struck by a piece ot rock blown out of the hillside by a. shot. He was about 200 feet away from the explosion, the farthest of ail the workmen on the job. The apparent safety of his position was added to by the fact that the hill in which the explosive had been inserted faced away from him, and a Diesel shovel was between him and the charge. ■ The shot is believed to have been normal, except that the energy of the explosive, instead of being expended entirely in loosening and bringing down rock, as had been intended, hurled some rock into the air in an unexpected direction. A warning whistle had been given, and the workmen had retired to a distance that was thought. safe, or taken cover before the shot was fired. The accident happened about 1.15 p.m. Liddy was hurried to hospital by ambulance, being admitted at 1.35 p.m. He died at 2.25 p.m. Work has been proceeding for several years at Moa Point without such a mishap occurring before. Large charges are not usual, and to-day s is stated to have been not out of the ordinary. It is the second blasting accident close to Wellington in eight days. Two men were buried and killed by a premature explosion on the public Works Department’s Ngahauranga Gorge works on September 19.