Accidents from Electricity.

Progress, Volume I, Issue 3, 2 January 1906, Page 60

Accidents from Electricity.

In cities where electricity is largely employed for lighting, heating and fraction, accidents are fairly common, and vary from slight burns up to apparent death from electric shock. The following is a list of the more common accidents m connection with electric apparatus, cables, conductors, dynamos, etc. — {a) A slight burn may be produced from short cucmtmg at the terminals of a small switch or lamp-holder, or by the " blowing "of a fuse. This is to be treated on ordinary lines as a burn. (5) When a workman puts a metal tool across two bare conductors of opposite polarity, the tool having less carrying capacity, or by bearing imperfectly on the " mains, "forms an arc with resulting flash. Severe burning and electric shock may be caused m this way. (c) An accident may occur in disconnecting the electrical circuit in a dynamo or other piece of apparatus in which there is a good deal of magnetic induction — e.g., in a broken shunt. This is all the more serious, as it causes great shock from the current being at very high pressure. (d) If the insulation of a dynamo armature at a generating station breaks down, injury to bystanders may result from fused copper or solder being violently thrown out while the machine is in motion.