SHOT UP A PIPE

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 254, 22 July 1919, Page 6

SHOT UP A PIPE

BOY'S ADVENTURE FROM RIVER TO TANK. Percy 'Silk, a pink-cheeked little boy of ten, living in a. maze of courts off Bankside, London, S.E., has become famous in Southwark as ths hero of a remarkable adventure. He-was playing by the side of the river near tho power works of the City of London Electric Lighting Co., when one of his companions, he says, gave liim a playful push and he foil in the water. He was soon struggling in a whirlpool, and the next thing he remember.-.' .was striking his head "against something hard." What he struck was a suction pipe over 200 ft. long and 3ft. in diameter through which water from the river is drawn into the water-circulating chain'ber of the power station, where it is used for steam-cooling purposes. The pipe is about 4ft. below the surface of the river at low tide.

Through this pipe the boy was'carried by the irresistible current. A. man had noticed his disappearance from the shore and warned the men at the power station that he had probably been sucked into the pipe. The water was immediately cut off. and officials-rushed to the water-eir-culatiiig chamber expecting to find a dead Ixdy. Oiip of them before raising the iron grating over tho well called out, "Anyone there?" and the parly were surprised to hear what one of them desribed later as a "lusty shout." On raising the grating Percy was found clinging to the top of the well. Ho had climbed up the side and out of the water.

He was very wet and frightened, but otherwise none the worse. His journey from tho river through the 200 ft.'pipe can have occupied barely a minutePercy believes it was at least an hour— but from the time of his disappearance into the tu'be until his rescue twenty minutes elapsed. His only clear recollection of this thrilling experience, which has given him locally Hie title of "tho hoy who wiis shot up the lube," is that after falling into tho water lie struck the pipe and "called for mother."