BUILDER'S FATAL FALL

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 889, 5 February 1930, Page 7

BUILDER'S FATAL FALL

EVIDENCE AT INQUEST ACCIDENT IN CITY GARAGE A verdict of accidental death through falling from scaffolding was returned by the coroner, Mr. F. K. Hunt, S.M., at inquest concerning the death of James Garner, a builder and contractor, held at the Magistrate’s Court yesterday afternoon, lamer, who was a marripd man with two children, lived at 56 McKelvie Street, Ponsonby. Evidence given by John Rudolph Monro, foreman of the assembly department of the Todd Motor Company, showed Garner had been working on January 23 on scaffolding near the roof of the company’s garage in Nelson Street. He fell 32 feet to the concrete floor. No one actually saw the accident, but both Monro and Bryan Edward Bennett, a mechanic, heard a. thud and saw Garner on the floor. The scaffolding had been approved of' only a few minutes earlier, according to John Matthew Murdoch, a scaffolding inspector. When he left Garner had been sitting safely astride of a plank. He had noticed thick smoke from motor-car exhausts in the building, which had made him cough He had wondered later if Garner had been, affected by the fumes, as he had a bad throat. In reply to a question, Bennett said there had been fumes from exhausts in the building, but that no engines had been running there for about 20 minutes before the accident. Medical evidence by Dr. D. R. Maxwell showed that Garner had been admitted to the Auckland Hospital at 10.20 a.m., suffering from concussion, with, a fractured elbow and wrist. He died at 1.50 p.m. the same day. There had not been a post-mortem examination, as the injuries were so obvious, and he could not say if there had been poisoning by fumes or what deceased’s general state of health had been.