TRAM FATALITY.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1503, 27 July 1912, Page 6

TRAM FATALITY.

EVIDENCE AT THE INQUEST,

THE CORONER'S FINDING,

The inquest concerning the death of tho | tram conductor, Frederick John Hancock, killed last Monday by being struck on the head by a tramway pole wliilo he was leaning over tho siclo of a double-decker car, was resumed yesterday before Dr. A. .M'Arthur, S.M. The accident occurred shortly before 2 p.nn. and Hancock died at tho hospital at 10.15 tho same evening. . Senior .Sergeant Darby led evidence on behalf of the police; Mr. J. O'Shea appeared for the City Council; and Mr. A. \Y. Blair for the widow of tho deceased. John Lee Walker, motorman, gave evidence. As lie was driving from J.iimbton Station past the Government Printing Office he saw ti car approaching driven by Motorman K-oid. As the cars were parsing he saw through tho top corner of tho shield of his car the figure of a man leaning over the sido of the other car touching the route boards. It was only a glimn.=e. He could not say definitely who the man was. M'itness had acted as conductor for i\ years. It was tho duty of tho conductor to change the route boards at tho terminus. If it was dime while the car was in motion there was danger of collision with a pole. Thero was a caution against this in the regulations; Mr. O'Shea hero put in a notice, tho text of which was as follows:—"Employees are strictly forbidden to change or attempt to change routo boards whilst cars are in motion. of this caution will entail immediate suspension/' Witness stared that, copies of the notice wei-e posted up in the cai-sheds at Newtown and Thorndon, and in tho messroom and the ofiice in Thorndon Quay. . To Mr.: Blair: The conductor had to do a considerable number of things at, tho terminus. It was- the conductor's, and tho inolorman's, business to' get the car away on time. The new time-table came into forco that day, July 22. Philip Andrew "Woodhouse. , senior housesurgeon at the Wellington Hospital, said that deceased was admitted to the institution at 2.30 p.m. on July 22. He was unconscious, suffering froni a wound on the leftside of the head. ' The brain was com pressed ,_ making an operation nscessiry. 1 he operation was performed, and decense.i improved for a lime, but later ho gradually got weaker and died. The cause of death was compression cf the brain, and haemoivhage, caused bv fracniw of Iho skull. . " . _ James Warmington, engineer, gave evi-c-ience as to-(ho accident. Ho was a pusspnger by the ear of which deceased was conductor. It was a doublc-dockcv car, and he was ridimr on ton.- ;Pas*ii\r the Government Printing Office, in Feathers- 1 ton. btrest, he heard a peculiar thud, and looking routid he saw deceased 'lcaniii" over tho side of the car. Witness rushoj to help him, but before witness could J I'jieh. him deceased was" struck on the head by another, pole. / Deceased was helpless and apparently unconscious. John Fairhurst Hickie, engineer, who was also' a passenger by deceased's car, corroborntcd the evidence given by the witness Warmington. . .'. Thomas Robert Iteade, motorman, stated that he was driving the car on which the accident happened. His first intimation of the acc ; dßnt catno from the witness Hickie, who called from tho top of thecal- that the. conductor, was hurt. Witness, with others; carried deceased downstairs, and across, to the Tramway Office. Hancock was. then sent to the hospital in an. ambulance. To Mr.'Blair: According to tho timetable, tho car would havo stopped from two to three minutes at Lnmbton Station. It was necessity to change tho routo boards, for tho car was due to change on to another route. Besides this, the conductor would have to turn tho destination signs, close the doors on one side of' tho car, and attend to the. gates on the platforms. All this would have to be- dono when the ear stopped, in order that tho iww running coukl te taken up. A condtctor had enough to do.at the stop; le had to be "pretty spry."' The coroner's finding- was as follows:— 1 he deceased came to his deith by coming into collision vith a standard polo between tho tracks of tho tramway lino while he .vas changing tho route boards In the face of the notice which w«s put in, I cannot find that any blamo was attachablo to the municipal tramway authorities. The immediate "au:-e of 'droth was compression ,'of tho brain from hao morrhage, caused ,by a fractured-skull."