Single Record

Full Details

Details of Event: The regular shot firer was off work and deceased who was employed at the quarry as a general hand and who had been a deputy and shot firer in North Elswick colliery had taken his place. Both surface clay and shale intermixed with sandstone beds and a little inferior coal is worked in the quarry. A vertical hole in the shale 5 feet 3 inches deep and 2 inches diameter had been drilled, and deceased went to the store on the margin of the quarry for the explosive. He brought away 13 feet of fuse, a detonator, and probably about 1.25lbs. of Kynoch's Gelignite A F. He went into a shed used for drying bricks under which were flues heated by fires using the inferior coal from the quarry; these flues were covered by cast iron plates about 1-2-inch thick and on them was usually a few inches of clay debris, and it is probable that he placed t he gelignite on these plates in order to thaw it as the weather was cold and it was probably hard. Two of the cast iron plates were fractured and deceased’s right hand was blown off, his left arm splintered below the elbow, the toss of his right foot blown off and both legs injured, and the clothing blown off the front of his body. When I visited the quarry on the 20th November I found the gelignite in the store had no proper warming pan was provided; it had been the custom of the regular shot firer to thaw the gelignite by placing it in a pail of warm water.