PERIL FROM LIVE WIRE

Taranaki Daily News, 29 April 1931, Page 7

PERIL FROM LIVE WIRE

INCIDENT ON COUNTRY ROAD. MAN’S FORTUNATE ESCAPE. Only by a piece of the greatest good fortune was It that serious consequences did not attend the breaking of a high tension power line near Richmond Brook, in the Marlborough district, recently. All one night and the greaterpart of the following day the broken cable lay on the ground discharging its 6000-yolt current, burning the grass ‘round about and sending up showers of sparks every time it was moved by the wind.

There had been no traffic in the locality until, in the afternoon, Fred Stratford, a cowboy employed on the Richmond Brook station, came riding along on horseback. It was his horse which discovered the live wire by putting a hoof on it, and it wasted no time in communicating the tidings to its master. Under the impetus of a severe shock the animal shot into the air, the girth broke lind the rider was catapulted on to the roadway. Shaken by the fall and suffering more pr less from the electric shock communicated to him tlnough' his mount, Mr. Stratford picked himself up. He was not seriously hurt. No time was Jost in effecting repairs It is regarded as extremely lucky that the line did not come into contact with the fencing, otherwise there might have been danger to human life arid mortality among stock. Mr. Stratford's experience, too, might have been more serious had the ground beep wet.