Opinion
November 16, 1949.
Appeal from Workmen's Compensation Board.
Present — Foster, P.J., Heffernan, Brewster, Deyo and Bergan, JJ.
Claimant's husband, the decedent, was a well driller. He died as a direct result of a coronary occlusion shortly after his midday lunch and as he was operating his employer's truck while en route to a delivery of some of his employer's equipment among which was a 300-pound welder which he and a helper had shortly before loaded manually. Under the evidence it could be found that the latter was not a routine experience and that in undergoing it decedent had expended an extraordinary amount of physical exertion. There was also evidence that, a few hours before, decedent had expended unusual efforts in loading heavy piping from the site of a completed well, necessitated by the fact that the location of the well did not permit the loading operation to be carried on in the usual manner. The medical proofs sustain the findings that the heart failure was due to accidental injuries which decedent sustained as a result of unusual physical exertion expended in the course of his employment. ( Matter of Cooper v. Brunswick Cigar Co., 273 App. Div. 1038, affd. 298 N.Y. 731.) Decision and award unanimously affirmed, with costs to the Workmen's Compensation Board.