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	Disasters - Names		Disasters - Names

Date:	5th February 1938
Colliery:	Birkby
Company:
Cause:	Electric shock
Lives Lost:	2
Category:

Two hewers were killed by electric shock at Birkby Colliery, Cumberiand. A seam 20 inches in thickness was worked longwall and was undercut by an electrically-driven coalcutting machine, the coal being filled into tubs at the roadheads of gateways 13 yards apart. The gate-end switch was on a main dip and the trailing cable led from it along a level gateway to the face, a distance of 28 yards. At 20 yards a branch gate was turned off to the left on a gradient of 1 in 10 and in that gate two hewers were filling ripping dirt into tubs. The machineman told the hewers that as there were no props at the junction on the gateway he would have to leave the trailing cable on the floor, and they must be careful to avoid it.

Some time later, the machineman got a slight shock. He left the face, and on reaching the junction found a full tub on the flat sheet there. He appears to have touched the tub and got a shock, for when his marrow, who had left the face by another gateway, got round to the junction, having switched the current off at the gate-end switch as he passed it, he found the two hewers lying unconscious and the coalcutter attendant sitting in a dazed condition. Artificial respiration was tried on the two hewers but they were dead. Investigation revealed that the tub had run onto the trailing cable, and a wheel had made contact with one of the live conductors.

The current was alternating, at 600 volts, neutral point earthed. The trailing cable was cab tyre sheathed with four cores. The cause of the accident was failure to suspend the trailing cable at the junction, or otherwise place it in a safe position.

Source:

1938 Mines Inspectors Report

	Irving, Isaac (Ikey), electrocuted, of Buchanan Row, Ellenboro, Maryport
	Wilkinson, W. Henry (Wilkie), electrocuted
	All names found
	Those names marked with , have a web page providing individual details of the accident, the page may also include a photograph of the deceased. Click on the symbol next to the name to see the web page.

11 Feb 1938

Notes from the Coal Fields, Cumberland (The Colliery Guardian)

 

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