AMAZING ESCAPE

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 380, 15 November 1932, Page 5

AMAZING ESCAPE

(Press. Assn.-

POWER WOjRKEp. TAKES 30,000 VOLT SHOCK THROUGH HIS BODY FALLS BUT STILL ALIVE

— By Telegraph — Copyrlght).

Auckland, Monday. An amazing eseape from instantaneons death was experieiiced by Leslie Graham Fife, aged 29 years, single,- wheu he came in contact with a eonductor earrying 30,000 volts at th,e Government station at Penrose, and fell about 20 feet to the groundHe received burns to practically every part of his bp^y, His head was severely injured • as the result of the fall, and he is. also suffering from shpck. He did npt lose 'conseiousness, and after receiving medical attention he was taken to the hospital in a seripus condition. Immediately prior to the accident Fife had been remoying birds' nests from the high tension strueture in the station yard. As there were no witnesses- to the actual oecurrence, it is not known' how the injured man came to touch the eonductor, which is high above the high tension strueture, and barely within reaeh of a man standing on the topmpst girder. Members of the station staff in the vicinity , heard a report and saw a bright flash and found Fife lying below the strqcturq. "It is phenpmehal that he is alive after taking 30,000 volts through his body, hut the shock of striking his head on the switch below may have helped to bring him round," said Mr. Chamberlain, superintendent of the station. 'He said that he had known eases where other people had survived after shpck, but as a rule they were killed instantly. It was imppssible to say how Fife touched the eonductor. Fife, who had recently graduated as a Bachelor of Engineering at Canterbury College, had been employed as an operator at Penrose for the past two mpnths.