Durham Mining Museum - Colliery Accident 1900 (original) (raw)

No. 454 on the list occurred at Hetton Colliery, belonging to Messrs. The Hetton Coal Co., Ltd., on December 1st, and caused the death of a way-end lad.

When this accident occurred deceased was working at some ways ends on the engine plane, and no one was near him. His duties were to change the ropes at the point where one way left the other, and to avoid moving the sets if the rope ends were not quite together he had a winch to haul in rope from the hauling engine to enable him to get the two ends coupled.

As he was found lying dead and no one saw what happened, it is impossible to say with certainty what caused his death, but it is very probable that he had been winching in slack rope, and after doing so he had coupled the ends of the ropes and then signalled to the hauling engineman to take the set away, but before doing so had forgotten to take the winch chain off the rope, and the result was that as soon as the ropes began to move the winch chain was taken with them, and the handle of the winch would be revolved very quickly, and in trying to get the chain loose the handle had hit him on the head and killed him.

There was a "pall" on the winch, but unfortunately it was not placed so that it would prevent the barrel reversing. Deceased should have been careful to see that the chain was quite free before he signalled to the engineman, and should also have the "pall" put into proper position before starting to winch the rope at all.

If he had taken these precautions I do not think there would have been an accident.

	Pringle, Thomas (died: 04 Dec 1900) , aged 16, Way-end lad, Found lying unconscious with his bead very badly injured near a winch on engine plane. The probability is that after winching rope he had omitted to take chain off and winch handle hit him on head. Died on 4th inst.
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