ELECTRIC SHOCKS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23955, 2 November 1939, Page 9

ELECTRIC SHOCKS

SUGGESTION BY CORONER RESPIRATORY TREATMENT (Ter United Press Association; AUCKLAND. Nov. 1. A recommendation that all po.ver boards should make it known to their consumers that any person suffering an electric shock should be treated as in cases of drowning b.V respiratory methods, which should be kept up for a considerable time, was made by the coroner (Mr Harris) at an inquest at Huntly into the death on Friday of Warrard Stevenson Archer, a farmer, aged 26, of Naike. Louis Handley stated that he was helping the deceased to erect a telephone wire for three-quarters of a mile across a gully. The wire was beneath a high-tension electric wire which was about 80 feet above the bottom of the gully. They were both pulling on the wire when the deceased fell down, crying out, “Don’t touch the wire. I have had a shock.” Witness called the deceased’s brother, but he was dead a few minutes later. A verdict was returned that death resulted from suffocation caused by electric shock when a telephone wire being strained by the deceased came into contact with an 11,000 volt electric wire.