BOY ELECTROCUTED

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 416, 26 July 1928, Page 12

BOY ELECTROCUTED

TRAGIC END TO CLIMBING PRANK

TOUCHED 50.000-VOLT LINE P €63 Associatio n ROTORUA, Wedne-d r. Th e adjo urae I Inquiry int stances attending the death of Raiu Rapaca, a boy aged nine years, on July IS. was held this morning by Mr. S. L. Paterson. S.M.. district coroner. John McAlister, linesman. in the employ of the Public Works Department. said that on July IS he was patrolling the line. He arrived at Mourea about 1j.43 p.m., and waste by a Maori woman that she had seen a flash on the Rotorua-Opotiki transmission line, which had a voltage of 50,000. He went along and saw the body of the boy on top of a structure about 35 feet from the ground. The boy was dead. His head was severed from the body and lay about 50 yards from the pole. The were steps on the pole, by means of which the boy could have climbed. He might have got on to the telephone hut and then started to climb the pole. He appeared to have climbed up and to come into contact with the live wire. Witness thought the boy got a shock, and then fell forward on the wire, which severed his head. It was dangerous to go within three feet of a wire carrying 50,000 volts. He rang the operator at Xgongotalia to cut off the current. The verdict of the coroner was that the deceased. Ratu Rapana, by misadventure, came into contact with a high voltage electric-power line and was electrocuted. He added that telephone huts or similar structures should not be placed close to poles carrying power lines, as to permit persons stepping therefrom on to steps placed on such poles.