THREE INQUESTS HELD

Southland Times, Issue 24235, 19 September 1940, Page 4

THREE INQUESTS HELD

BOY’S DEATH AFTER PLAYING FOOTBALL SYMPATHY EXTENDED TO PARENTS Three inquests were held in Invercargill yesterday before the Coroner (Mr R. C. Abernethy). . At the inquest into the death of Norman Robert Crowther at Invercargill on September 5 a verdict was returned that death was caused by brain injuries accidentally received while the deceased was playing football. Dr Howard Hunter said that he examined Crowther about 1 p.m. on September 4, after his admission to hospital. A decompression operation was performed and the patient rallied temporarily, but collapsed and died at 2.20 a.m. the next day. Alexander Small, of 146 Morton street,, described the game of football in which Crowther was injured. There was no rough play during the game, he said, and it was played in a friendly spirit. He did not see the deceased receive a kick and he did not complain about being kicked. Evidence was also given by Agnes Mary Crowther, Laurence Henderson Crowther and Reginald Eric Davis. "" “This is a tragic happening,” added the Coroner, “and all I can do is to express the sympathy of the Court to the parents.”

DEATH DURING OPERATION “This is an unfortunate case where a child born with a terrible handicap was operated on in an attempt to correct, in some degree, the handicap the child was suffering,” said.the Coroner in the inquest into the death of Sylvia Lynette Davis, aged one and a-half years. “An operation was performed, apparently in the proper way, but unfortunately the child collapsed.” Dr G. B. Orbell said that he performed an operation on the child at the Dee Street Hospital on August 28. The child was in hospital last May for a first-stage operation for a cleft palate. At that time there was some doubt about the condition of the heart, but the anaesthetist decided that an anaesthetic was safe and this stage of the operation was completed without any untoward incident. At the second operation Dr R. Moore could detect nothing wrong with the heart. Near the'end of the operation the child collapsed and artificial respiration, injections into the heart and direct massage were unavailing. Dr R. Burns Watson gave evidence of massaging the child’s heart. The child, he said, was in an ideal position for an operation of this kind to prevent the trickling of blood into the airways. Dr R. Moore also gave evidence of the operation. Dr W. J. Barclay described the postmortem examination of the body on August 28. He said that the examination did not show any abnormality sufficient to account for death. A verdict was returned that the child died while undergoing a second-stage operation’ for a cleft palate, a postmortem examination failing to show any abnormality sufficient to account for death. CARDIAC FAILURE That he died at Invercargill on August 31, 1940, the cause of death being cardiac failure due to disease of the coronary arteries, was the verdict returned in the inquest into the death of James Artnell Marshall. A post-mortem examination on the body was described by Dr Barclay, who said that in his opinion death was due to cardiac failure, the result of disease of the coronary arteries.

Alexander Ramsay, a driver employed by the New Zealand Express Company, gave evidence of finding Marshall lying dead on the floor of the office about 7.30 a.m. on August 31. Evidence was also given by Constable H. V. Jenner.