FATAL SHOCK

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 3, Issue 661, 13 October 1933, Page 5

FATAL SHOCK

(Press "Assn.-

woman killed by contact with electric wire ' CURRENT AFFECTS HEART

-By Telegraph — Copyright) .

Auckland, Thursday. An electrical shock from a clothesline connected to a household electricity supply is believed to have indirectly caused the death of Mrs. Caroline Lillian Mason, a widow, aged 56 years at her home at 10 Gladwin Road, Epsom. Her death was not due to electrocution as the current in the clothes-line was too weak but the aff ect upon her heart is believed to have been responsible for the fatality. Mrs. Mason, who was alone at the time, was found by a baker lying in the backyard. She was lying across a wet blanket which. she had apparently been carrying and the clothesline had collapsed. A neighbour, Miss E. Cant, who was summoned when Mrs. Mason was found says that she too received a shock when she touehed the line. It was not severe but she could feel its effect in her arm for some time. As a precaution, the fuses in the main switchboard in the house were pulled out by a marine engineer who was working on relief work nearby. He said that the clothes-line seemed to have been used as a wireless aerial. A subsequent examination of the premises by Mr. F. Langridge, electrical inspector of the Public Works Department, and offieers of the Auckland Eleetric Power Board showed that the clothes line was a live line and had apparently been used as an aerial for a home-made crystal set which in turn was connected with an electric plug inside the house.