Alexander Halford was a Great War veteran when he volunteered for the Second World War. He had served in the NZ Field Artillery, attaining the rank of Corporal and being discharged after the end of hostilities.
In June, 1941 he re-enlisted, having been employed by the Dunedin City Council as a labourer.
On November 14, 1942 he was involved in a minor accident while travelling in an army truck, which resulted in lacerations of the fingers of his right hand. This accident led to his death shortly afterwards.
WRONG DIAGNOSIS.
INQUEST ON DEATH OF SOLDIER.
(P.A.) DUNEDIN, This Day. ,At the inquest into the death of Alexander Halford, aged 49, a soldier, the evidence disclosed that a wrong diagnosis was made on his admission to the hospital after jamming his hand between the frame of a lorry in which he was riding and a gate-post.
The Coroner (Mr W. H. Bundle, S.M.) returned a verdict that death was due to tetanus. It was possible he said, that death might not have occurred if deceased had received treatment other than he did. An experienced surgeon had unfortunately made a wrong diagnosis; but apart from that there seemed to be no question that death would probably not have occurred had anti-tetanus serum been administered when deceased first attended the out-patients’ department of the Hospital. There was little else the Court could say on the matter; but it was well, in the interests of medical practitioners themselves and of the general public, that it should have been publicly ventilated. -Ashburton Guardian, 19/12/1942.
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