FATAL ELECTRIC SHOCK

Press, Volume LXIX, Issue 20985, 13 October 1933, Page 5

FATAL ELECTRIC SHOCK

CLOTHES-LINE I SKI) AS WIRELESS AERIAL (I'RKS.S ASSOCIATION TELEGRAM.) AUCKLAND, October 12. An electric shock from a clothesline connected to the household electricity supply is believed to have indirectly caused the death of Mrs Caroline Lilian Mason, a widow, aged 56, iat her home, 10 Gladwin road, Epsom, The current in the line was too weak to have caused the death of a healthy person, but Mrs Mason suffered from a weak heart. Mrs Mason, who was alone at the time, was found by a baker lying dead in the back yard. She was lying across a wet blanket, which she had apparently been carrying, and the clothes line had collapsed. A neighbour, Miss E. Cant, who was summoned when Mrs Mason was found, said she, too, received a shock when she touched the clothes line. It was not severe, but she could feel its effect in her arm for some time. As a precaution the fuses in the main switchboard in the house were pulled out by a marine engineer who was engaged on relief work nearby. He said the clothes-line seemed to have been used as a wireless aerial. A subsequent examination of the premises by Mr S. Langridge, electrical inspector of the Public Works Department, and officers of the Auckland Eeetrie Power Board, showed that the clothes-line was alive. The line apparently had been used as an aerial for a home-made crystal radio set, which was in turn connected with a light plug inside the house.