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-
,rrs with a veritable magnet of death,
a. J. Brown, a young lineman, lies at
me Atlanta hospital today struggling
vaAn1y to recall the sensations he ex-
-..raenced while 1000 volts of enotric-
M shot through his body for nearly
svgo minutes yesterday,
TIE right side of Browns face is
burned and swollen and the flesh of his
srht foot IS cooked, but besides these
sud a few other lesser burns there is no
,raysz Of the terrible ordeal through
vgt4ch he passed in the transfer room of
rbs Georgia Railway and Power Com
r,anya-an ordeal through which prob
sNryy not one man in a million has
passed and lived
But be will return to electrical work
WREN he is well.
q don't remember anything" said
Brown this morning. And then he
qrowned, visibly trying to recall some
thing. an intangible something that
came to him as he was near death.
But ha could not grasp it. he said.
Remembers Only Violent Jerk.
'T remember that my head was
,erked backward, but that was all he
rsid. MY head 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
But remember only the first Jerk.
They say stayed fixed against the
cable for nearly two minutes The two
minutes are lost to me forever After
the jerk of my head I 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
nerciful. There was nothing of pain.
nor Of any sensation whatever. Not
even the burns were painful when
began to realize them after 1 had re-
covered consciousness. And vet the
burns we're bad. ! 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
told to him by his partners.
They say ] dropped to the floor when
they cut off the switch. The room al
ready was heavy with the odop of
scorching 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 l never would have come
oack at that 1 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
cohseaIed at once. Even as it was.
oon see how / lived. The rubber boots
saved me. / know. There was nothing
10 make a circuit. no metal at all"
unUl 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
.a'etul after this, and not risk a two
,oot margin between his head and al
heavily charged wire.
Inc Wire to which he was drawn was
'e Stepof from the transformer and
'ofe 1000 volts. The charge was
gorhed down from the $4,000 volts
"Hch entered the transformer