El Paso daily herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1881-1901, 1899-05-13
HE'S CURRENT PROOF
DAN STAND ONE 1000 VOLTS
OF ELECTRICITY.
John Dunn of Cleveland, Ohio. 10 a
Wonderful Conductor - Does the
Electric Fluid Really XIII Anybody
Chances for Reviving.

When the New York dispatches an
nounced that an electrical worker had
received a shock of 1000 volts and
lived the query was raised concerning
how much electricity a man can stand
HampeI set a circuit in screwing
loose screw on a trolley switchboard.
1t was said he received the mentioned
number of volts. John Dunn Of Cleve-
land, O., places the number at 500, and
asserts that this is not sufficient to
kill in many cases. Dunn has mad
some twenty years experience in TAX
ing shocks while at work and is in a
position to know. Dunn is known
among his associates as the human
lightning rod. He fears no 500 volts
of anybody's electricity. He denies
that Hampel, the New Yorker men
toned, stopped any such enormous
voltage He coyly admits that he him
self took 1850 without losing more
than half day. He has had so many
trolley wire shocks that he has trou-
BILE in remembering them all. Here
is what he has to say on this topic:
ut is impossible for a man to receive
a shock of 2,G00 volts in any power
house in the country, for no street
car line uses such a powerful current.
Here in Cleveland the voltage is 500,
with the exception of the suburban
lines, which run up to $50, and this is
the custom throughout the country.
That New York man got a shock OF
800 volts, but that is powerful enough,
let me tell you. 1 had it once and 1
oh
when l was working for the Cleveland
Electric Lighting cori pany. l was
wiring the office of Jonn j. Shipherd,
down on Superior street, when the po-
liceman on the beat tod me there was
a loose wire on the Brooklyn track.
So out l went The wire was dangling
down almost to the ground. It was
alive and very dangerous, SO l said
that l would cut enough off to keep it
from hitting anybody, while the po-
liceman telephoned to the company
about it. There was big crowd about
and everybody thought 1 would be
killed if l tackled the wire. / caught
hold of the wire and was just about
to cut it, when a newsboy came run
ming along. Hello, Dunn says be,
"HdI diS you SOluS " w! w
that he reaches up and grabs me by
the leg. Now, he was standing on the
track, and the minute he grabbed me
established a circuit and 1 got the full
force OF the current. OF course it was
just my imagination, but 1 swear to you
that 1 heard the machinery in the
power house out in Brooklyn buzzing
away. The shock made he grab my
pliers with such a grip that 1 bent the
curved handles straight. If 1 had
taken hold of the wire with the other
side of the pliers up it would have
been different, because all my force
would have been eXerted in cutting the
wire. But this way, the harder the
current the more 1 gripped the wire.
Fellows who have had shocks say they
can't let go. That's because they
in. 1 just braced my feet against the
dashboard and pulled with all my
might, and somehow 1 got loose. But
my fingers, where one of the handles
lay, were badly burnt. That was only
500 volts, but I've had double that
yes, more than double that About
nine years ago 1 was working all alone
on the Perkins block. We had two
wires running across Seneca street,
md 1 was pulling up the sag and max
ing new joints. Now, when we are
working a wire we have what we call
jumper That is, we take a short
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