LIGHTNING FLASH

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 70, 20 September 1939, Page 4

LIGHTNING FLASH

TRAGEDY IN PARK

REMARKS BY CORONER

HERDING INSTINCT A DANGER

(By Air Mail, from "The Post's" London Representative.)

LONDON, August 28. *

At an inquest at Ilford on seven people who were killed by lightning when sheltering in a wooden building in Valentine's Park, the Coroner (Dr. P. B. Skeels), recording verdicts of accidental death, said he had searched records and could trace no previous case of as many as seven people having been killed by the same flash of lightning. The lesson to be learned from this shocking tragedy was that people should not herd themselves together in a building or under trees during a thunderstorm. If they had to go into a shelter they should not be touching one another, as this only increased their liability to shock.

Mr. Arthur Rowe, chief air-raid warden, of Romford, said that there was a bicycle standing unattended out-, side the shelter which was struck and another outside the hut in which he was sheltering. While the storm was raging there was one terrible thunderclap. He heard screams and looking across the field to the other shelter, which contained about 25 people, he saw that something had happened. All, with the exception of three, were moaning and crying. People were lying outside in the water. There were one or two men among the injured whose bravery he thought magnificent. They waved him on to others more seriously injured and did all they could to help.

Dr. Gerald de Lacey, of King George Hospital, Ilford, thought that Mrs. Ruane, one of the dead persons, received the full force of the shock, which passed on through the ground to the others, who differed in their "conductability."

"The human body," said Dr. Lacey, "is not normally a good conductor, but people seem to differ." Many of the injured had small blisters on their feet, but none of the dead showed these symptoms. All the dead must have been killed instantly.

Patrick Ruane, husband of the dead woman, told the Coroner: "There was a flash just under the edge of the shelter from the top to the bottom, and at the same time a bang. We. were flung to the ground. When I came to my senses I saw flames coming" from my wife's clothing, but as fast as I tore her clothes away the flames kept shooting out."

Mr. Robert Rqll, the Ilford parks superintendent, said that the trees behind the wooden structure, with a corrugated iron roof, were ash. Another ash tree in the park was struck by lightning during the day.

The Coroner said that it appeared that the shock passed down the central pillar and through the concrete floor of the shelter. It was well known that animals herded together during a storm, and he recalled that he himself had seen as many as seventeen foxes lying dead under a tree, having been struck by lightning.