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Show PECULIAR FREAK OF LIGHTNING FLASH INTERCEPTS ELECTRIC WAVES OF MESSAGE TO STEAMER. ! I Deflects Down Wires to Operating Room In Wireless Station, Badly Burning the Operator at Work. San Francisco, Feb. 8. A lightning flash, intercepted by tho electric waves of a message being thrown from a wireless mast to a steamer at sea, and j deflected down tho wires to the oper-, oper-, ating room of the wireless station. badly burned William J." Smith, the . operator, who was seated before his , Instruments. The peculiar accident J occurred early yesterday1, during the I short electrical storm which swept ! oer the city. Smith was rendered : senseless for ten minutes, and on re-! re-! covering, found that fantastic designs ! had been burned ou his tlesh by tho j current. j Smith was communicating with tho steamer Lurllne, which left port last Friday, towing the bark Mohican to Honolulu. The storm broke with sud-J sud-J den intensity, three blinding flashes j of lightning following one another j quickly, a tremendous peal of thun-; thun-; dor accompanying the light. " Suddenly a blase of light broke from , : the instruments In front of Smith and" 1 he was hurled from his chair half way acrosB tho room by the shock of the high tension current " which had been caught by the message waves. Only his position and the fact that the force of the current was spread both ways along tho message waves, it is claimed, saved him from instant death. 1 ' When Smith recovered he found himself little the worse for his experience ex-perience a9lde from the strange figures fig-ures etched on the skin of his chest and arms, and the shaky feeling. He returned to work tonight. |