High Voltage Accident at Dieringer
A power company lineman suffers severe burns while working on a 60,000-volt transmission line near Sumner.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Ralph Wright, an employee of the Puget Sound Power & Light Company, was seriously burned recently when he came in contact with a power line bearing 60,000 volts while working near Dieringer, two miles east of Sumner. Wright was treated by Dr. B. J. Gilshannon before being taken to the Valley Hospital in Puyallup, where it is said he would recover.
“Ralph Wright... was seriously burned recently when he came in contact with a power line bearing 60,000 volts.”
Dangerous industrial accidents were a frequent consequence of the rapid, sometimes reckless expansion of the electrical grid in early 20th-century Washington. It serves as a reminder of the human cost behind the modernization of the state's infrastructure.
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