Single Record

Full Details

Surname

KREGZDIS (or SWALLOW)

Forename

Judzus

Day

30

Month

11

Year

1925

Age

Occupation

Miner

Mine/Quarry Name

Hattonrigg

Mineral Worked

Coal

Owner

Summerlee Iron Co. Ltd

Location

Bellshill

County

Lanarkshire

Details of Event

Information from the Inspectors of Mines - 1925: Explosives At Hattonrigg Colliery, Lanark, a Polish miner took 5 lb. of gelignite in a canister to his working place. A hole was ready bored but, on opening his canister, he found the gelignite frozen. He told his mate that he was going to heat the explosive and went into the roadway. A few minutes later there was a violent explosion in the road and the flame swept into the face and burnt the man there. The Pole was killed instantly. Naked lights were used and apparently deceased had been warming the canister on a shovel, because one was found with a large hole in it and badly distorted. The gelignite should not have been issued from store in a frozen condition, and deceased ought to have been sufficiently instructed by the officials in the nature of the substance he was using to prevent him doing such a foolhardy trick. 30 November 1925: Illegal Handling of Explosives – Miner's Family Refused Compensation - Sheriff Marcus Dods has issued at Airdrie his decision in a case of some importance, in which the wife and four children of a Polish miner, named Swallow, residing at Hanley Place, Hattonrigg Road, Bellshill sued the Summerlee Iron Company Ltd, Hattonrigg Colliery, for £470 2s, as compensation for the death of Judzus Kregzdis or Swallow, the husband and father of the pursuers, who were dependent on his earnings. Swallow, it was alleged, was killed by an explosion of gelignite in the course of his employment with the respondents. The Sheriff has found, however, that that it is not so. He was Hattonrigg Colliery warming some sticks of gelignite by means of the heat of his miner's lamp and was instantaneously killed by the explosion of the gelignite, and his Lordship considers that this was not injury arising out of or in the course of his employment. He refuses compensation to the claimants, and allows expenses to the respondents. The Sheriff remarks that the conclusive evidence of the nature and cause of the explosion was, in his opinion, furnished by the appearance of the shovel produced and of the only scraps of the lamp and of the canister that were found, taken with the statements made by witnesses immediately after the accident. The centre of the shovel blade was clean blown out and the rim twisted and contorted, creating a strong impression that the shovel had been used as a sort of warming plate, probably balanced on a couple of stones, the canister having been placed on the top surface of the blade and the miners lamp underneath it. Swallow's case, the Sheriff adds, does not come under the statute at all, with the result that it was both unnecessary and impossible to consider whether he was acting for the purposes of his employers' trade or business, though contrary to instructions or without instructions, in the sense of Section 1(2). [Scotsman 3 December 1926]