Mexborough & Swinton Times – Friday 30 May 1930

Trapped Thumb.

Wath Postman’s Death From Slight Injury.

Whether an injury to a thumb was caused while working or otherwise was the question a jury had to settle at an inquest at Mexboro’ Hospital on Tuesday, into the death of Alfred Pottle (54), 13, Fitzwilliam Street, Wath.

The inquiry was conducted by Mr. W. H. C,arlile, and Mr. A .H. Jackson, of Rotherham, was present on behalf of the widow.

Charlotte Pottle ,the widow, said her husband had been employed for nearly four years as an auxiliary postman. He held also the position of caretaker and night operator at the Wath telephone exchange. Her husband was an ex-Service man in receipt of a pension.

On Friday, May 16th, her husband complained of cold and dizziness, and had to go to bed. The following morning he was still unwell and was unable to go to work. The same day, about 4-45 p.m., she heard a knocking in her husband’s bedroom, and on going there found him lying on the floor in a faint. He revived and went downstairs for a wash, and Dr. Crowley was , sent for. The doctor arrived about 8-15 and immediately ordered her husband to bed, saying that he was suffering from influenza.

Following a visit from the doctor the following day, her husband complained of a scratch on the left thumb. When the doctor saw it, he ordered the scratch to be poulticed. The next day a lump appeared under her husband’s left armpit, and the thumb turned septic. On May her husband became delirious, and the doctor ordered his removal to the Mexboro’ Hospital, where he died on Saturday.

Answering the Coroner, witness said that since Christmas her husband had fainted on several occasions. The scratch on her husband’s thumb was very slight, and although she had asked him several times how he got it he would not tell her.

Christopher Charles Smith, a postman, 12, Co-operative Street, West Melton, said that on May 21 he asked to assist Pottle into an ambulance. While they were waiting for the vehicle Pottle told him that the wound on his thumb had been caused while delivering letters in Sandymount, by trapping it in a gate. The man at the time did not complain of pain from the thumb but from pain from the left side of his body.

Mr. Jackson: Have you since learned whether the injury to the thumb had been caused while the man was working?

Yes. I have found that on May 15th Pottle complained to the foreman at the gas works that he had trapped his thumb when he was delivering letters, and also the same day he had it seen to at the L.N.E.R. station by a man named J. Snart and another called Hewitt.

Dr Jean J. Smith: resident surgeon at the Mexborough Hospital, said that when Pottle was admitted on May Mat he was suffering from septicemia, created by an injury to the lefthumb. The man’s condition was serious. The illness in its early stages could have been taken for influenza, especially when no mention had been made of the injury. The man died on Saturday, and following a post-mortem examination the doctor had found signs of early pneumonia in the left lung, the result of septicaemia, which was the cause of death.

A verdict “that the man’s death was caused accidentally through his thumb being trapped” was returned by the jury.