YOUNG MAN ELECTROCUTED.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVII, Issue 2905, 4 July 1925, Page 2

YOUNG MAN ELECTROCUTED.

Christchurch, July 3,

James Ward, a married man with three children, of Hawford street, Opawa was electrocuted as he stepped out his front gate this morning. Dnring the night a falling

tree knocked down a live wire and this was lying on the footpath.

At the inquest, James William Hoskins, a boilermaker, employed by the Lyttelton Harbour Board, said that when he was going ■ <aleh the morning train to wdV: 1 he noticed a bicycle on the road an’ci Ward’s body lying on the footpath. “I came across the road at ah angle,” said witness, “and when } had got within six feet of him i got a nasty shock that turned me right round.” | Witness went to Mr Scott ar£! got him to ring up the police ai|f the electricity department, and lateg waited to warn people who were u£ing the road. When he came baefc he found that all the high tension wires were down, and blue dames were emanating from them for a length of the street. A tree had evidently brought the wires down. One of the wires was touching the head of the body at intervals, and another one, which witness had stepped on, was on the ground. It appeared to witness that Ward had walked out with his bicycle, touched the wire and fallen on his back. If witness had walked straight across the road, lie would probably have been electrocuted as well. In speaking of the shock he had received, witness said: “It was the hardest kick I ever got in my life. 1 didn't know whether it was a tree that fell on me, or what.” The Coroner said witness deserved to be commended for what he had done, and remarked that high tension wires on a wet morning were highly dangerous things, lie did not know the exact voltage, hut it had been sufficiently powerful to cause death. In the circumstances, it was particularly unfortunate accident, a healthy young man had been cut down outside his gate, and lie had left a wife and three children. He would lind that death was caused by electric shock, due to Ward’s coming into accidental contact with electric wires, which had been brought down by a tree overnight.