Chickasha, OK electrical accident, Apr 1930

66,000 Volts Hit Electric Worker, But Still Lives

Special to The News.

CHICKASHA, Ok., April 4. - Hiram Johnston, a helper at the hydro plant of the Southwestern Light and Power Company, is resting well in a hospital here after having had 66,000 volts of electricity pass through his body.

Johnston has been cleaning insulators in a part of the substation from which the eectricity had been cut. Having finished the job, he went to the other half of the station, which carried the full load of 66,000 volts, and started to resume his task.

Workmen said he climbed to the top of a circuit breaker case and evidently started to grasp the bushings on top of two insulators. He carried a gasoline-soaked rag in his left hand. Workers saw a flash and Johnston tumbled from the circuit breaker case, his clothing on fire. He was dragged away and while one man fought to extinguish the flames that were spreading over his oily clothing, another applied the prone pressure method of resuscitation.

For fifteen minutes this task was continued before there was a sign of life in Johnston's limp body. Then he started to breathe. He was taken to a hospital, where doctors treated him for burns by electricity in each of his hands and burns from fire about his face, neck and one arm.

Physicians said that unless infection from the burns set in, he will recover.

The Dallas Morning News, Dallas, TX 5 Apr 1930
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Transcribed by Tim Taugher. Thanks, Tim!