HURLED DOWN.

Auckland Star, Issue 18, 22 January 1940, Page 6

HURLED DOWN.

FATHER AND SON.

LIGHTNING IN N.S.W. '

" WIRE SEEMED TO LEAP AT

us.»

(From Our Own Correspondent.)

SYDNEY, January 18

Several people had lucky escapes from death when lightning etruck in several places in the suburbs and at Penrith during a severe electric storm on Monday. At Penrith Mr. J. C. Turner and hie son Jack, aged about 14, were repairing a fence on Mr. Turner's orchard when the storm broke. It is believed that Mr. Turner received the full force of the flash, which then travelled through hie son and was earthed by the wire. They were both hurled to the ground and the wire, now charged with electricity, whirled around the father s arms which were burned and lacerated.

Mr. Turner was rendered unconscious by the shock and when he recovered drove with hie son to the doctor for treatment.

"There was a distant peal of thunder," he eaid later, "and a few seconds later a faint flash of lightning. The wire we were holding seemed to leap at Uβ. That's all we remember."

At the Ryde fire station the hose tower wae struck and pieces of metal and woodwork scattered over an area of 50 yards, but no one wae injured. A tram in Mosman was stopped when lightning struck the trolley pole and blew the fuses. Electric clocks in public buildings and houses at Mosman also stopped when another flash of lightning blew the main fuses of the substation switchboard. A telegraph pole at Willoughby was splintered and pieces of it scattered over the roofs of adjoining buildings.

Considerable damage was done at Eastwood Golf Clubhouse, which was also struck. "Flames surrounded me and fibre and plaster from the wall fell at my feet," said the greejikeeper, who had gone ineide for shelter with several members. "I eaw vivid flashes of light and sparks and then I was momentarily blinded as I dashed into another corner." Two players sitting on tifce verandah saw the lightning strike a tree a few. feet away and strip sheets of bark and timber from it like matchwood. They were deafened by a terrific peal of thunder. At Hunter's Hill a gardener was mowing a lawn when there wae a loud crash and be felt a jolt. The lightning ran along the wire netting at the top of the fence, splitting the post. One poet wae hurled into a paddock.