Single Record

Full Details

Surname

SOTHAM

Forename

Vincent

Day

14

Month

09

Year

1908

Age

27

Occupation

Ripper

Mine/Quarry Name

Wharncliffe Silkstone

Mineral Worked

Coal

Owner

Wharncliffe Silkstone Colliery Co. Ltd

Location

Pilley

County

Yorkshire WR

Details of Event

He and his father were doing some ripping about 15 yards from the face of a heading. They had drilled a shot hole and were preparing to get some empty tubs into which to fill the stone displaced by the shot. There were four full tubs standing on the single road between the ripping canch and the pass-bye and these had to be removed before the empty tubs could be brought in. The deceased took the first full tub, and after he had one about 20 yards the iron hoop round the top of the tub, which had by some means become partly detached, came in contact with an electric cable and cut through the insulation. He had his hands on the iron hoop at the back end of the tub and as the road was very wet, the current passed through his body. The current-500 volt direct current was at once switched off and the deceased taken to a dry place and efforts made to restore animation by artificial respiration for over an hour without success. The place where the accident occurred is in a pass-bye in which there is a curve or bend, and it is low and wet. The cable was suspended by tarred string from the props and plugs in the roof on the outer side of the curve. There had been a small fall of stone near the face which tightened the cable and caused the string suspending the cable at the bend to break with the result that it sprung across towards the road and was hanging close to the rail and in a direct line with the iron hoop where it was detached from the side of the tub, and the cable became wedged in this space. The deceased could not see the cable was down as, on account of the place being so low his head was below the top of the tub when he was pushing.