SHOCKING FATAL ACCIDENT.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2676, 23 June 1894, Page 3

SHOCKING FATAL ACCIDENT.

A frightful accident occurred at the New Zealand Freezing Works at Auckland at 11 o’clock on Thursday morning. Two men, John W. Lusher, of Auckland, and H. F. Kennedy, of Sydney, were testing a carbonic acid cylinder which was apparently leaking, to try to find out the leak. The men took each a handle of the cylinder and placed it in water in a barrel, that by the bubbles coming up they could locate the leak. The effect was instantaneous. The cylinder burst, Lusher was killed at once, his brains being scattered upon the wall, and Kennedy’s head was bashed in and terribly mutilated, and he lived only a few minutes. Professor Brown gives the following explanation of the explosion. It was probably due in the first place to a portion of the liquid carbonic acid escaping into the copper cylinder where it would partially volatilize, becoming very cold, and on the cylinder being put info the barrel the liquid carbonic acid would give off more gas, owing to the higher temperature of the water, and so rapidly increase the pressure. The leaky condition of the cylinder showed plainly that it was taxed to its utmost strength and an increase of the pressure consequent on dipping it into water would be sufficient to cause an explosion. Lusher is a brother-in-law of the Mayor.