Newspapers / [The echo]. / July 1, 1950, edition 1 / Page 20
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DANGER-HIGH TENSION! By BILL GULICK This article by Bill Gulick is reprinted by special permission of The Saturday Evening Post—Copyright 1949 by the Curtis Publishing Com pany. We know you will Find DANGER—HIGH TENSION! interesting reading for not only is it a good story in itself, but at its conclusion you are bound to recognize that "SAFETY IS NO ACCIDENT”. ILLUSTRATED BY PAUL NONNAST I .T happened, as those things al ways do, with a suddenness that gave the foreman, Mack Boyd, no chance to prevent it, no opportunity even to be sure just how it happened. One moment, Slim Conners had finished tightening the last nut on the copper connector and was shifting his working position on the substation steel above; the next the line man’s body was writhing against his safety and the high voltage current was spitting and crackling as it arced across him and through him to the beam. There was little time for thought, but some men learn a capacity for acting without thinking. Before any of the ground crew could move, Mack lurched to the switch stool at the far corner of the substation, lifted the short wooden handle and threw his weight against it. The switch clanged open, the deadly spit ting stopped, and Slim Conners hung there limp in his safety, his body turning slowly under the beam. Mack heard his own voice shouting hoarsely, "Get a line on him, Pete! . . . Shorty, bring the tarp out of the truck, then call an ambulance. Tell ’em to bring a respirator.” Later, Mack estimated that little more than a minute had passed from the time Slim Conners first got into the stuff un til he was on the ground and artificial respiration started. The ambulance got there with a doctor and a respirator with in fifteen minutes. While the doctor worked, while the respirator steadily pulsed and sighed, while the minutes lengthened into hours. Mack paced slow ly back and forth across the white gravel 1 E lea '’Mack—look out!" Fete’s warning struck him like a pitcher of cold water flung in his face. 18
July 1, 1950, edition 1
20
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