ELECTROCUTION DANGER

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVII, Issue 4931, 27 January 1926, Page 3

ELECTROCUTION DANGER

ELIMINATING THE RISKS. ■■ ' — . . NEED FOR FURTHER TESTS. ''- The recent announcement that a r- Hamilton electrician has evolved a device for automatically shutting off the current immediately- a wire fa, from no matter what cause, thus greatly minimising the risk of elec- ; ’ trocution, was. mentioned at the meetjiißg of the Te Awamutu Power Board 5 when the chairman (Mr J. T. Johnson) replied to a> query by Mr S. C. ■ Macky: that he would not advise precipitate action in installing the device until, it had been further tested. It might answer all tests such .as had • been carried out,, according to the -L press reports, in the Whatawhata district, but a test in actual use over a period was what was required. He could relate instances of interruption to the wires, when the safety -cut-off had not been tripped at the neat'test < sub-station. As a 1 matter of fact, the fatality last year at Te Rore was a case in point. After the fatality tests had been made; a,nd it was proved that under special circumstances, stich as existed at Te Rore, where the wire did not' fall, directly to the ground, but was; resting on sqme cut fern, there was not sufficient resistance to the cut-off at the sub-s.tation. He did- not mean to discourage any experimenter, or to discredit Mr J. R. Ellis’*, device, but he was ’not in favour of equipping the board’s lines • xvitb it at present. The fact, as he "■ said before, that a device answered " tests was not all that was required. He would concede that Mr Ellis had reduced the risk, and that w&s a splendid thing. Maybe, after actual experience, that was, .after the apparatus had been in operation for . some while, he wou'ld move'to equip ■< the Te Awamutu Board’s lines with it. —Waikato Times. »