TWO MEN INJURED BY LIGHTNING

Press, Volume XCII, Issue 27735, 12 August 1955, Page 12

TWO MEN INJURED BY LIGHTNING

TELEPHONE LINE STRUCK ELECTRICAL STORM ON WEST COAST (From Our Own Reporter) GREYMOUTH, August 11. Lightning injured two men who were talking on telephones a mile apart at the Roa coal mine this morning. One of the men, Donald McFadyen, check weighman at the mine and secretary of the Roa Miners’ Union, was thrown across the room, knocked unconscious by the shock. The other man, the manager of the mine, Mr Joseph Turner, was wearing rubber boots at the time, but was knocked back six feet from the telephone, and his leg was burnt where it was touching an iron bar. McFadyen was talking on an intercommunication telephone from the weigh cabin at Middle Flat, well up Paparoa range, at about 10.10 a.m., to the manager in the mine office near the bottom bias about a mile away, when the lightning struck the telephone line, explained the district manager, Mr A. O’Donnell. Though he recovered consciousness after treatment, McFadyen was obviously badly shocked, and was rushed to the Grey Hospital by ambulance. There was no other severe damage from the severe electrical storm which started last night, but lightning continued through the morning. One State coal mine, Wallsend, was forced to stop work when a power line was severed and ventilating fans were put out of action. Lightning also put the Inangahua power line out of action soon after 7 o’clock this morning, but power was restored within quarter of an hour. Power board linesmen were engaged overnight attending to blown fuses in sub-stations which cut off power to individual consumers. Later this morning lightning was responsible for putting the three trunk telephone lines to Moana and two to Rotomanu out of action.