Killed by Electricity.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XIX, Issue 6893, 14 June 1892, Page 4

Killed by Electricity.

AN AGONISING SCENE. Melbourne, May 30. — A terrible fatality took place in Russell street on Saturday evening, resulting indirectly from the violent thunderstorm which passed over the city. At about eight o'clock an electric lighting wire at the intersection of that street with Lonsdale Btreet, being apparently severed with by the lightning, fell across the roadway, where the insulating material covering the wire strands took fire, and remained burning for some little time. The broken end lay fizzling and fuming in the flooded gutter, and as each sudden rush of water tiung it from side to side of the channel bright sparks were emitted. The wire at once became an object of interest for passers by and a group collected upon tho footpath adjacent. The danger involved by the presence of the wire was realised by most of the people who saw it, and it was left by them at a safe distance. Presently, however, a mau named Chas. Hy. Andrews, who whs walking with a friend named Herbert Wills, approached the wire and stated that he was going to coil it up and put it beyond the possibility of doing any body any harm. Andrewß laid bold of the wire, and as ho received no shock from the fact that the insulation at that parb was perfect, concluded, he says, that the current had been shut off at the works. He coiled up several feet of the wire until he came to the point of severance or into its vicinity. Tken he appears to have laid hold of the naked wire and he received a shuck which threw him into the gutter and occasioned unutterable physical agony. Being unable to drop the wire he screamed wildly to be relieved from his terrible position, and his friend Welli immediately went to his assistance Andrews held the wire by his right hand only, and V\ ellf>, in an eudeavor to pull him away gripped his right wrist tightly with both hands, and the unfortunate man, who was of singularly powerful muscular development, dropped like an ox, to all appearances quite dead. By grasping <his friend with both hands he had in his own person completed the imperfect circuit and received the full strength of the circuit of 2000 volts which was then passing through the wire. For some time the two men were thrown about by the current ; Andrews, who was still alive, struggling spasmodically under the influence of the electric fluid and ■weighted dawn by the dead body of his unfortunate friend. At length Mr Stewart, of 204, Russell street, procured an axe and cut the wire, and released Andrews and the corpse. A constable speedily arrived on the spot and conveyed the injured man and his dead friend to the Melbourne Hospital, where Dr Buntine, after an inspection of Wells, pronounced life quite extinct. The ears of the deceased were quite black, and in addition to marks upon the arms and thighs, « purple belt 6in. in diameter extended across the chest at the base of neck. Andrews was suffering severely from the shock, and was badly burned on the palm of the right hand. He stated that just as the current was cut off by the application of the axe blade he felt as though he were dying, and that had the blow been delayed another few seconds he must have inevitably succumbed. When his hand had been dressed he was allowed to proceed home. Other persons slightly injured are Mr A. L. Charlton. hairdresser, Russell street, who trod upon the wire and was thrown against the wall of an adjoining house, and a young woman, who took hold of Wells with the view of pulling him off the wire ; fortunately for her just at the moment when Mr Stewart brought the axe into play.