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Details of Event: Died November 20. Deceased was working in a longwall heading 17.5 feet wide in the South-west district of the Five Quarter seam. The coal was nipped out at the right side of the place; it had been worked forward 7 feet, gradually thinning from 18 inches until it was entirely lost. A caunch extending half-way across the place from the right side, above where this thin could have been taken out, had to be blown down. At the brow there was 2 feet 4 inches of post overlaid by blue metal. Deceased set his boring tree just outbye of a 8 feet balk, which, with a prop at either end supported the permanent roof 1 foot 9 inches from the brow and sat down on a piece of stone between the balk and the brow to drill a hole near the top of the post, and had his legs stretched out under the brow. When he had drilled 18 inches, a stone, 24 inches by 20 inches by 18 inches, fell off the brow on to his legs and broke his left thigh. It was relieved by jacks at the side and by a parting above and fell between two short props set 2 feet apart under the brow. The chargeman was in the place at the time having examined it, and thought all was safe and when the stone fell was coming out from under the brow close to deceased. He was taken to Newcastle Infirmary but as the broken bone would not unite he was put under chloroform and was being operated on when he died from shock and heart failure.