CLOSE TO DEATH

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22350, 22 February 1936, Page 28 (Supplement)

CLOSE TO DEATH

' ELECTRICIAN'S ORDEAL As lie hung powerless from a live cable 30ft- above the ground feebly shouting "Help!" an electrician was rescued at Towyn, Wales, recently, by his 21-years-old assistant. While at the top of a ladder propped against an electric high-tension standard, Mr. T. D. MacDiarmid, of the Towyn and Aberdovey Electricity Company, had connected a transformer to a main overhead transmission line carrying 11,000 volts and was about to remove his safety belt when he re-

ceived a shock. He clutched a low-ten-sion cable while his other hand was in contact with a neutral wire, and was unable to release his grip.

As Mr. MacDiarmid was losing consciousness Derek Hooper, his assietant, who was on the ground, jolted the ladder away so that Mr. MacDiarmid fell away from the cable and became jammed head downward between the ladder and transformer rails. Hooper then climbed up and hauled him down. " I felt myself being tied up in knots," Mr. MacDiarmid said afterward. " It seemed that my eyes were being torn out of my head, and all 1 could do was to hang on and wait to die—a relief I should have welcomed. As soon as Hooper got me down, so that 1 should not lose my nerve I climbed the ladder again and seized the live wire with one hand."

Hooper said: " It was lucky that I thought about the dangers of contact. Had I tried to pull Mr. MacDiarmid away while he was clutching the wire it would probably have electrocuted both of us."