WORKMAN'S NARROW ESCAPE

Evening Star, Issue 21147, 6 July 1932, Page 10

WORKMAN'S NARROW ESCAPE

POWERFUL ELECTRIC CURRENT PINS AND NEEDLES SENSATION. Witt his head hanging over the edge of the narrow ledge around the 120 ft high dome of the Coliseum, St. Martin’s lane, Loudon, a workman, Harry J. Baker, lay helpless in the grip of a powerful electric current recently. Eventually the foreman of the renovating work being carried out on the dome heard Baker’s cry. The current was switched off and the man was rushed to Charing Cross Hospital. It was found that his hands had been burned by the electric shock and his feet blistered, but he was able to leave the hospital after treatment. “I was standing on the ledge near the electric lighting display system,” said Baker. “As I pulled a rope I stepped into a puddle and immediately felt thousands of ‘ pins and needles ’ passing through ray body. I was hurled to the ground, but fortunately fell on to the ledge. The current continued to pass through me and I was rapidly becoming unconscious.” The foreman who rescued the man, Mr J. Griffiths, said the Coliseum lighting power is 2,500 volts. Baker’s accident was due to a leakage—and to the puddle—but ho did not receive the full force of the current. “ I was in St. Martin’s lane when I heard his cry,” he said. “ I looked up and saw Baker lying precariously on the ledge with his head hanging down over the cornice.

“I ran up the ladders shouting all the time / for the electricians to switch off the current. They did so just as I reached Baker.”