KILLED IN A SHAFT.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 26, 31 January 1912, Page 4

KILLED IN A SHAFT.

ELECTRIC SHOCK. Benjamin Jones, a. rock-driller, residing with his wife and child at 121 St. JohnVroad, Forest Lodge (New South Wales), was killed in the sewer outfall j works, Long Bay, shortly after midnight j last week. He was electrocuted through | the current of an electrifc rock-drill short circuiting. In some inexplicable way he got foul of the electrically charged machine, and, despite the heroic efforts of his mate, could not be extricated in time from his awful position (says the Sydney Morning Herald), Deceased and his mate, John Davis, were working at the rock face of a, ' tunnel at the 100 ft level of shaft 6A. Davis was at the .rock manipulating the drills, and the noise of the machinery and motor in the confined space was almost deafening so that the first intimation to Davis that anything was wrong was an agonised scream that rang above the roar of the . machinery. He turned, ; and saw his mate lying acro«> the mach- | me he had been driving with his face livid, and writhing- m unspeakable agony. In a flash he realised that hi» mate had been, in some manner, caught by the current, and he at once rushed to the switch in order to shut it off. But something was badly wrong with tho whole electric installation, and Da-vis, dazed and shaken, was flung violently back against the walls of the tunnel. Undeterred by this, th« plucky miner wrapped his 614 felt hat about- his hands, ioping that the non-conductivity of the felt would protect him, but the ha€ must have been damp, for ac soon as his hands touched the switch be was thrown to the ground by another terrific shock- ' Dizzy and half-stunned, the miner still essayed to cave his mate, and, realising that it would be fntilft to touch the switch again, tried to pull Jonee from the contact with the machinery. Again h« failed, for the current held the now insensible Jones to the metal, and Davis sustained another sickening shock when he touched his electrified body. By this time the candles of the miner* had become , extinguished, 4nd Davis found himself in the dark, .stumbling among live wires and ankle-deep in water, in imminent peril of his life. He received still another shock as he groped his way to the shaft, but he managed with great grit to climb tho 100 ft to the Slat, where the main switch was, apd lere he turned off the current. Securing a light, Davie descended again to the tunnel, and hauled the inanimate form of. his mate into a cleared space, and at once proceeded to try and reviv« him. But the strength of the current had been too much for any man to survive, and, though Davis and other willing helpers laboured incessantly in desperate hope, when Dr. Wallace, of the Coast Hospital, arrived, he pro* nounced life extinct. The cause of the deadly short circuit is not definitely known, but it is surmified that one of the drills leaning against the walls of the tunnel near the motor slipped owing to vibration, and came in contact with one, of the terminals. As Jonce was standing on a wet board hie body helped to complete the short circuit, and he was caught in the deadly current. fmm wam+mm q— — mw — p^ s