HURLED FROM HIS BATH.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 19 February 1925, Page 4

HURLED FROM HIS BATH.

GUESTS STARTLING EXPERIENCE. FROLICS OF LIGHTNING AT PALMERSTON. During an extraordinary severe thunderstorm in Palmerston North on Mondav evening a man sat in a bath at a residence in -Napier road when his ablutions were interrupted b.v a blinding flash at, the foot of the liatli. Simultaneously he was lilted completely from the water on an aerial pilgrimage only to lie unsympathetically reminded of material things by the back oi his head striking the end of the porcelain vessel (.says the New Zealand Times). He was dazed by the rapid rise and fall, aqd frightened, but when an extraordinary vicious clap of thunder, which invariably follows a flash of lightning, burst almost over the house, his last spark of courage vanished as smoke in a gale. Scrambling from the bath he fled terror-stricken through the house, determined to place the greatest possible distance between the bathroom and himself. His success in this direction was proudly related by himself, but he decided when he, requires elect racial treatment together with a bath that, lie will visit a specialist instead of entering the water during a storm and relying upon the elements to provide the current. During an exceptionally vivid flash of lightning some of the residents in the vicinity claim that a phenomenon resembling* a ball of fire struck two trees in the property, splitting one and stripping the other of its bark. A steel clothesline attracted electricity, which was conveyed thence to the verandah of the house. The current connected there with telephone wires, and the wood around the spot at which the clothesline touched the house was scorched, as also were the boards along the route of the telephone lines. The 'phone was immediately thrown out of order, in its search for a connection to earth the lightning danced down a water pine, thence to the pipe at the end of the bath.

Tlie man whose ablutions were so unceremoniously disturbed was a visitor to the house, but in tlie excitement and terror of the moment, all else but the explosion was forgotten. An examination of the premises indicates that the resident was fortunate in not having the place ignited by a passage of lightning, while the guest in the bath was equally fortunate that he was not electrocuted; Other residents in. the vicinity have complained of the severity of the storm and declare that the lightning affected their telephones, at the same time causing much alarm in the locality.