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car and the side of the well. Apart from a defect in the car guide-shoe, which was an effect of the accident, and a defective lock on the ground floor which had no bearing on the accident, rigid tests of the lift and its equipment did not reveal any defects which would have caused the lift to stop and thereby lead to the accident. The temporary stoppage may have been due to snatching at one of landing-doors as the lift passed upwards. The slamming of a snatched door would restart the fltt. The term " snatching " is used to express the practice of irresponsible persons forcing open landingdoors of automatic lifts as the car passes a landing and momentarily releases the safety lock. Evidence at the inquest disclosed that snatching was prevalent in the building. The lift has since been fitted with a device which will prevent this abuse. , ,„„„ (4) The second lift fatality of the year under review occurred at Auckland in December, I9<K>, when a man was killed while riding on a lift certificated for goods only. The deceased was visiting the caretaker of a building after office hours and ascended in a goods-lift, although there was a proper y equipped passenger-lift on the premises. The body was found in the lift-car at the second floor, a,nd from the injuries received there is good reason to believe that he was jammed between the car and tie side of the lift-well when the car was ascending. There were two prominent notices m the car stating that the lift was for goods only and prohibiting any person from riding m the car. 11m Coroner s verdict was that deceased died from a fractured neck resulting from an accident caused through, his inability to manage a goods-lift in which he was trespassing. , (5) On 19th October, 1936, a workman, whose normal duties were those of attending to a revolving screen used for washing and screening coal at a mine on the West Coast, was found dead in a troug beneath the screen. There were no witnesses to the accident, and the primary cause can only be surmized. The screen makes only twenty-two revolutions per minute, equivalent to a peripheral speed of about 207 ft. per minute, and it is not likely that the deceased was caught by it. Severe injuries to the head and neck were the cause of death, and it seems probable that deceased tnpped and fell into the trough and received the fatal injuries from the fall. The machine was equipped with safeguards at the time of the accident, but the platforms and guard-rails have since been improved to prevent a repetition of this class of accident. (6) When .a power-diiven excavator was being used at Wellington on the 9th December, 1936, for pulling timber piles from a refilled trench, the luffing rope broke and the falling jib struck a workman on the head and inflicted injuries from which he died the next day. The fractured rope was thoroughly tested on behalf of the Department at the School of Engineering, Canterbury College, and results showed that it was in good condition at the time of the accident. Bull-dog grips used for seizing the rope at the end where it fractured were improperly fitted, and this, combined with the fact that the machine was overloaded, was the primary cause ol the accident. The machine was certificated by the Department for use as an excavator and was being improperly used as a crane when the fatality occurred. (7) In December, 1936, a worker was killed by a butter churn m a dairy factory in JNorth Auckland. The man was not connected with the operation of the churn, and his duties at the time of the.accident were washing a drain in the vicinity of the machine. He was found dead at the back of the churn, and from the injuries he had received it was assumed that his head was crushed between a fixed and rotating part when he either slipped on the wet floor or fainted and fell against the machine, Ihe churn revolved very slowly, turning only 3| revolutions per minute, and the gear-wheels and other dangerous parts were enclosed by protective housings. In view of the slow speed at which the machine operated it was considered that the portions which projected from the back of the machine were not dangerous. Steps are being taken to improve the safety of this type of churn. ' (8) The remaining fatal machinery accident of the year occurred m a bakery at Dunedm on bth February, 1937. While dough from a dough mixing machine was being tested with the hopper-lid raised and the internal beaters running, a baker inadvertently dropped his left hand into the hopper and it was crushed between one of the beaters and the side of the machine. The injuries were not severe, but complications arose and the injured person collapsed and died in hospital about nine days later, ihe machine had been in operation for over twenty-five years without an accident and the deceased had been engaged at the machine for a period of thirteen years. The machine is of a very old type, and as it has two sets of beaters which may be run either in the same or opposite directions, it is difficult; to guard completely. The hopper-lid is being fitted with an interlocking device so arranged that when the hopper is open for the purpose of testing dough the beaters will run m the direction m which an accident is not likely to occur. . One hundred and twenty-nine non-fatal accidents connected with inspected machinery were reported during the year. Of these, one hundred and fifteen were minor accidents and fourteen were major accidents. In each case the circumstances of the accidents, and the safeguards and condition of the machine, were fully investigated and, where practicable, improvements to the machine or to the safeguards were effected in order to prevent a repetition of similar accidents. The return shows a considerable increase over last year, when a total of sixty-two non-fatal accidents were reported, it does not follow, however, that machinery has become more dangerous during this year than it was last vear. The higher accident rate may be attributed to a great extent to the fact that during the year Inspectors were notified that they should report all machinery accidents, except the really trivial ones which incapacitated the injured persons for three days or more. The Inspection of Machinery Act requires owners of machinery to notify to the Department only those accidents causing loss of lite or serious bodily injury. In previous years Inspectors did not have uniform views as to what constituted a serious accident, and hence would probably not have reported a large number of the accidents classified in this report as minor accidents. The increase in the number of machinery inspections shows that there has been an increased use of machinery during the year, with the consequence that more persons must have been exposed to the dangers of machinery. This would also explain to some extent the seemingly higher accident rate.

3—H. 15.

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