CHEMICALS EXPLODE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 11 April 1938, Page 6

CHEMICALS EXPLODE

ONE BOY KILLED AND TWO INJURED MISHAP WITH HOME-MADE EXPLOSIVES. AUCKLAND LADS’ EXPERIMENTS. By Telegraph—Press Association. AUCKLAND, April 10. One boy was killed and two were injured when some chemicals they were playing with on the back lawn of a house at Victoria Avenue exploded shortly before 11 o’clock this morning. The three boys were trying to ignite some home-made explosives which they had placed on the grass, and too large a portion was apparently ignited. The victims were: —

Killed: William Twiston Davies, aged 15 years 10 months, only son of Mr and Mrs P. T. Davies, Victoria Avenue.

Injured: Arthur Jack Prosser, aged 16 years, son of Mr and Mrs A. Prosser, Orakei Road, Remuera; severe lacerations to the chest.

Francis Harrison-Smith, aged 16 years, son of Mr and Mrs C. HarrisonSmith, Vic+oria Avenue; lacerations to the chest. It was stated that William Davies, who was a pupil at King’s College, where he had taken chemistry as one of his subjects, had taken the other boys out to the back lawn of his father’s home to explode some chemicals which had been mixed in a glass container.

A small portion of the mixture was placed upon the grass and some sulphuric acid was poured on to it. No explosion occurred, and so the boys poured some more of the chemicals upon the mound already on the lawn. This had already ignited and with the explosion, which was heard by householders many blocks away, the mixture on the lawn blew up and exploded that in the bottle. William Davies is thought to have been holding the container and his right hand was blown off and his chest severely injured. He died almost immediately. The other boys were thrown to the ground by the force of the explosion and both received cuts from flying glass and shock. . All three were bending over the mound when the explosion occurred and their injuries were mainly confined to their chests.

Prosser was more severely injured than Harrison-Smith and his condition is fairly serious. Harrison-Smith escaped the full force of the explosion and is not seriously hurt.