TELEPHONE POLE SNAPS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 18207, 28 September 1922, Page 8

TELEPHONE POLE SNAPS.

LINESMAN STRAPPED TO BAR. A REMARKABLE ESCAPE. While working near the top of a telephone pole in Melbourne last week a linesman named Donald Campbell was hornfled to hear a sudden' crack, aiid to feel the pole jolt. Campbell swayed backwards and forwards with the pole. For a moment he thought that th* 60 or 70 wires that the pole carried would keep it upright, but gradually it began to fall. It had snapped off level with the pavement. Campbell shouted out a warning as the pole fell across the tram track in Swanston Street, and with a sudden spurt a passing motor-car escaped injury by inches When the pole was about sft. from the ground Campbell tried to jump clear, but forgot that he was strapped to the crosstcees. He fell back on top of the pole just as it struck the ground. As the pole fell it dragged down two other poles, and snapping all the wires they became entangled with electric light wirea. t Then the top of an electric light post in the middle'of the road broke. The fusing of the wires caused a series of flashes. Campbell was taken to the Melbourne: Hospital suffering from shock. Only a few minutes before the accident he had chifted his position to the west side of the pole, and had thus probably saved himself from being crushed. The polo was found to have been decayed through the centre, but a shell of sound timber lin. thick had prevented the inspector from discovering the danger.