According to a report in the 21 January 1881 edition of the Cornubian and Redruth Times a young man with the surname of Willoughby from Churchtown in Illogan parish brough a gun to be repaired at Thomas's smithery' Hr told Thomas that the gun was not loaded and he hadn't used it for a week. Having put the barrel to heat it, Thomas was interrupted by the arrivel of 16 year-old John King delivering a bos from S & T Trotman's stores. Wheteher he was aked or volunteered to help is unknown but John started to work the bellows bu had hardly started when the gun exploded embedding the contents, some of his trousers and some wadding in his left leg, just baove the knee. In doing the wound went through to the bone which it shattered. Dr Harris ayyended and arranged for a strecher and some bandages to be bought from the Ambulance Store so that when the wound was bound he could be transported to the hospital. There he was attended by Drs Harris, Hudson and Deverell but remained in a precarious state
[Investiagtion leads to (William) John King being the Crown-born son of Benjamin (tin miner) and Martha. In 1871 he was a 5 year-old living with his widwed mother at Laity near Camborne. On the 1881 census - two months after the accident - he is the 15 year-old errand biy to a grocer at the North Cornwall Miners' Hospiatl which then stood in its own grounds on the south side of West End, Redruth. It is now used as an office block and is on a road called Gweal Pawl (Paul's field), In 1891 he was a grocer's warehouseman living at with his sister Martha Ellen 5 Trefusis Terrace in Redruth, so he appears to have survived the ordeal]