WORKMAN ELECTROCUTED.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 3740, 12 January 1928, Page 3

WORKMAN ELECTROCUTED.

DANGEROUS PORTABLE LAMP

Hamilton, January 11

An inquest to ascertain the cause of death of Maurice Robinson Halle, an engine-driver, employed at the time of his death on December 18, by the Waikato Valley Dairy Company, was held to-day before the district Coroner, Mr. M. Wyvern Wilson, S.M. Deceased was found in a dying condition on the floor of the factory and there was some doubt as to whether death resulted from heart failure or electrocution. Alexander Murdoch Bellamy, electrical inspector, said that on the morning following the fatality he inspected the Waikato Valley Dairy Company’s factory. Pie tested the flexible cord of a portable lamp and found that it was making contact with a brass socket of a lamp holder that would cause a defect liable to give a person touching the copper shield of the portable lamp a shock. The Coroner said there were two unsatisfactory features about the ease. The first was that apparatus was interfered with by a person unqualified to interfere with it, and who left it in a somewhat dangerous condition. It was in that condition when deceased took possession of it for the purpose of his work. The second feature was that there was not satisfactory evidence that this particular apparatus was ever inspected or tested. It was certainly in a dangerous condition for the work in which it was used. A verdict that deceased was accidentally electrocuted was returned.