WORKER ELECTROCUTED

Hokitika Guardian, 28 August 1928, Page 4

WORKER ELECTROCUTED

AN UNUSUAL CASE. \ustralian Press Assn.—United Service GISBORNE, Aug. 27. Circumstances attending the death of Roy Gray Bartlett, 27 years of age, ivlio was electrocuted on Wednesday, while working on the Wiuata district extension portion of the Poverty Bay Electric Power Board scheme, were inquired into to-dav by Coroner Levey, S.M.

Evidence given l>y the foreman of the party out with •deceased was to the effect that deceased and another were sent to bring a ladder to a pale next to the one at which the fatality occurred, and were out of sight of the ether workers, who were on the river bed. After deceased had been gone ten minutes, witness received a report from the men on the other side of the river that smoke and flames were coming from the top of the plughole. At itness went to the scene. Ho saw the deceased on the. top of the pole, lying across .the wooden arms, with one arm across the line and the hack of his neck across another, The current was cut off and the body was lowered to the ground. There were six wires on the arms, throe of them being live ones, with a voltage of six thousand, and three dead. So far as he knew deceased had no reason to ascend the ladder. He had not acted contrary to instructions, hut had exceeded instructions The reason deceased had ascended the polo was that two dead wires were bridged together, and deceased evidently thought that they should not he like that, and went up to disconnect thorn. There was no mistake in the bridging, but to an inexperienced man, it might have looked like a fault. If . deceased thought something was wrong, witness admitted it was his (deceased’s) duty to fix it. and thus safeguard his mates, or if any mistake had been made, then all the men working on the riverbed were in danger If the deceased had believed something was wrong, he did the best thing he could have done. The Coroner returned a verdict that the deceased accidentally fell from the pole on to the electric wires, and that deceased ascended the pole for the purpose of effecting certain repairs which . in his opinion, were necessary. .