FATAL BURNS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 26 August 1938, Page 6

FATAL BURNS

AUCKLAND JEWELLER’S FATE INQUEST ADJOURNED (By Telegraph—Press Association.) AUCKLAND, This Day. The story of how a jeweller, Thomas Robert Ballantyne, a married man. aged 59, with three children, rushed for help into the neighbouring shop, with his clothes on fire on the morning of May 30, was related to the Coroner (Mr F. K. Hunt), at an inquest today. Ballantyne died on Wednesday last in the Auckland Hospital. His son, James E. Ballantyne, stated in evidence that his father was working alone at the rear of the shop. He was pouring benzine into a basin, and was starting to clean a clock when he found that there was insufficient light in the room. He climbed a ladder to open a wooden shutter, but when the ladder slipped, he had to jump to save himself.- As he jumped he knocked over the basin of benzine. Some of the liquid spilled on his clothes, and some ran along a work-bench, where a lighted cigarette was lying. The benzine ignited, and the flames spread to Mr Ballantyne’s clothes. Running through the front shop, he tried to extinguish the flames with a coir mat. He was unsuccessful and rushed into an adjoining shop where customers managed to put out the flames. The inquest will be completed and the coroner will give hiS finding within the next few days.