Electric shock kills two children

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33773, 20 February 1975, Page 16

Electric shock kills two children

Zealand Press Association)

AUCKLAND, February 19.

Two little girls were killed, and another child, its mother and a doctor suffered shocks after a power line leading to an Orakei house broke this afternoon.

The mother and the doctor apparently suffered shocks when they lifted the children from a fence on which the line had fallen. The dead children were Lvnncse G'«nda Irwin, aged six. and Sand-a I-ouise Irwin, aged *our. They were the daughters of Mr and Mrs J. G. Irwin, of Tautari Street. Orakei. Senior-Sergeant J. F. Freeman, of the Auckland nobce said tonight it anneared that the dead chiMron were playing at a neighbour’s place across the road from their home.

They had been plaving in and round a swimming pool when, it is believed, two power lines had “arced” and one had broken. It had caused a fence, the ground, and possihlv the pool. too. to become live

Senior-Sergeant Freeman said the woman occunant of the house, whose child was plaving with the dead child-

ren before the accident, had noticed there was no power in the house and had notified

the Auckland Electric Power Board. Soon after that she went outside and saw three children lying on the ground. The woman, believed to be Mrs Judith Smith, of Tau*ari Street, rushed to help the children, and suffered a shock.

It was not known tonight who raised the alarm but two ambulances, a doctor, the police, and power board linemen arrived at the address. The doctor, who declined to be named, said he found the children touching the “live" fence.

“I dragged one off and someone else dragged the other off, and we started trying to resuscitate them,” he said. “The ambulance arrived and they were put on to the Minuteman portable resuscitators.

“I got a bit of a shock myself when I pulled the girl away from the fence, but it was not a bad one.”