Atlanta Georgian. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1912-1939, 1913-01-28
SURVIVOR SAYS
He DID NOT FEEL
$1,000 VOLTS
Lineman Who MiracuIousIy Es-
capped Death Against Power
full Transformer Talks.

Weak and unnerved after his adven-
-,r-e with a veritable magnet of death.
VI Brown, young lineman, lies at
the Atlanta hospital today struggling
vainIy to recall the sensations he eX-
osrienced while 1000 volts of electric
nv shot through his body for nearly
TWO minutes yesterday.
The right side of Browns face is
nurrad and swollen and the flesh of his
right foot is cooked, but besides these
and few other lesser burns there is no
mark of the terrible ordeal through
which he passed in the transfer room of
the Georgia Railway and Power Com
nany-an ordeal through which prob
ably not one man in a million has
nassed and lived.
But he will return to electrical work
when he is well.
81 don't remember anything" said
Brown this morning. And then he
frowned, visibly trying to recall some
thing. an intangible something that
came 10 MIN DIS ne NdS near uCdlll,
But he could not grasp it, he said.
Remembers Only Violent Jerk.
q remember that my head was
ierked backward, but that was all" he
said. My mead came within two feet
of the heavy cable of the transformer.
An arc must have been formed that
drew me as a magnet draws a needle
,,,,J,
They say l stayed fixed against the
cable for nearly two minutes. The two
minutes are lost to me forever. After
the jerk of my head | remember only
the feeling of nausea and dizziness that
came to me with the first ray of con-
sciousness at the hospital.
Death from electric shock must be
merciful. There was nothing of pain,
nor Of any sensation whatever. Not
even the burns were painful when 1
began to realize them after | had re-
covered consciousness. And yet the
burns were bad l was slowly cooking
to death and could not have lived many
seconds longer"
Brown told the story of the incidents
following the shock as they had been
tod to him by his partners.
They say ! dropped to the floor when
thoy cut off the switch. The room al
READY vas heavy with the odor of
soorchng flesh, and they say the
stencil Has not gone away yet.
Every Muscle Rigid.
Every muscle of my body, they tell
me, was rigid and every joint fixed.
They had to pry open my mouth with a
ScreWdriver and put blocks of wood
within to hold it open while they work.
ed with artificial respiration in the at
tempt to bring me back to life
If they had not worked so hard and
80 quickly | never would have come
back at that, was paralyzed. and had
stopped breathing, they tell me. If the
current had passed down the left side
my heart would have been stopped and
CONCEALED at once. Even as it was, I
don t'see how | lived. The rubber boots
saved me. l know. There was nothing
10 make circuit, no metal at all"
Until Browns right foot, which is
burned deeply, heals, he will be forced
10 Keep his bed at the hospital After
mat ne will return to his electrical
work. But he says he will be more
.'FeiuI after this, and not risk a two
root margin between his head and a
'ravily charged wire.
Fne wire to which he was drawn was
The Stepoff from the transformer and
pore 1000 volts. The charge was
Worked down from the $4,000 volts
winch entered the transformer.