NARROW ESCAPE

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 276, 16 July 1932, Page 2

NARROW ESCAPE

WORKMAN SUSPENDED 120 FEET IN AIR RECEIVES ELECTRIC SHOCK. With his head hanging over the i edge of the narrow ledge around the 120ft high dome of the Coliseum, St. Martin's Lane, London, a workman, Harry J. Baker, lay helpless in the grip of a powerful electric current. , Eventually the foreman of the renovating work being carried out on the dome heard Baker's cry. The current was switched off and the man was rushed to Charing Cross HosP'ital. It was found that his hands had been burned by the electric shock and his feet blistered, but he was able to | leave the hospital after treatment. I "I was standing on the ledge near i the electric lighting display system," said Baker. "As I pulled a rope I stepped into a puddle and immediately felt thousands of 'pins and needles' passin'g through my body. "I was hurled to the ground, but J fortunately fell on to the ledge. The I current continued to pass through me j and I was rapidly becoming uncon- j scious." The foreman who rescued the man, j Mr. J. Griffiths, said th'e Coliseum j lighting power is 2500 volts. Baker's j accident was due to a leakage — and l to the puddle — but he did not receive the full force of the current. "I was in St. Martin's Lane when I heard his cry," he said. "I looked up and saw Baker lying precariously on the ledge with his head hanging down over the cornice. 'V ran up the ladders shouting all the time for the electricians to switch off the current. They did so just as I reached Baker."