CLOSE CONTACT WITH DEATH

Dominion, Volume 35, Issue 280, 25 August 1942, Page 3

CLOSE CONTACT WITH DEATH

Carbon-Monoxide Poisoning Y.M.C.A. SECRETARY FOUND ON TERRACE

A close contact with death was the experience of Mr. K. M. Brasted, national secretary of the Y.M.C.A., within the past few days. Mr. Brasted has a gas-producer plant attached to his motor-car, and had considerable trouble when endeavouring to start it on Wellington Terrace the other evening. He tried in vain to get the engine to turn over till the battery ran down. Thinking he might get a start by allowing the car to run downhill, he ran down from the Y.M.C.A. headquarters to the bottom of the grade on The Terrace, opposite the Wellington Club, still without success.

Mr. Brasted closed up the car and W’alked back to his office, in order to telephone for some petrol. As he was told it would take some time, he decided. to go back and try to get a start with the aid of a second battery he happened to have in the car. While adjusting this battery in position he had to bend down and got this first whiff of gas. Feeling giddy, he straightened himself up and took a deep breath. That was the last thing he remembered.

He was found lying half in and half out of the car in a state of unconsciousness. The police were soon on the scene, and he was taken for identification purposes to the Y.M.C.A. and thence to the hospital, where he was treated at once for carbonmonoxide poisoning. Mr. Brasted was unconscious for three hours, and was afterward told that he had the closest call it was possible for a man to have under the circumstances. Had he not been promptly discovered when lying half out of his car on The Terrace death would have ensued.