CHILD'S FATAL BURNS

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Volume 81, Issue 80, 28 December 1937, Page 7

CHILD'S FATAL BURNS

Petrol Ignites at FillingStation TANK ALONGSIDE BATTERY The opinion that a motor-truck fitted with its petrol tank and battery alongside each other under the driver's seat was a dangerous veliicle was expressed by the coroner, Mr. F. W. Flatts, at an iuquest held at Hamilton into the death pf John Eobert Seurr, aged five years, who died of burns in the "Waikato Hospital on December 7. The boy, who was the son of Mr. and Mrs. William Scurr, of Eotowaro, was enveloped in flames when the petrol which was being pouTed into the tank of a motor-truck ignited. Evidence was given by Sydney Naismith Gubb, lorry driver, that he was filling the tank of his lorry at Eotowaro on December 6. The boy had been in the back of the truck but was standing on the road near it when the brass nozzle of the petrol pump hose touched the positive terminal of tho. battery, which was slightly above the level of the tank and within six inc.hes of it. There was a spark and the benzine ignited. Witness dropped the nozzle and a gallon of petrol poured out on to the ground. The boy's clothes were splashed and he was badly burned about the body. A motor electrician, Eeginald Darcy Dempster, described the juxtapositiou of the» petrol tank and the battery in the truck as dangerous. Few trucks were now equipped in this way, he said, most trucks having the tank at the side. Witness consldered the batteries should have a wooden or rubber covering. The coroner returned a verdict OjC accidental death. He suggested that children should not be permitted to stand near petrol filling stations when motor vehicle tanks were being filled. and that the batteries of vehicles situated near the tanks should be suitably covered.