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Sunday, June 23, 2024

Austin Sparks, City Electrician, Killed While Working on High Voltage Wire, June 23, 1924

City Electrician at Shelby Electrocuted. . . Austin Sparks Killed While Working on High Voltage Wire

Shelby, June 19—Austin Sparks, 22 years old, son of William Sparks, and city electrician, was electrocuted this afternoon while working on a high voltage pole on one of the business streets of Shelby. Lois Lispcomb, another city employee, made a daring climb up the pole and with pliers cut loose the wires and belt holding the limp form of his pal.

Efforts at resuscitation by physicians hurriedly called were in vain. He gave a few gasping breaths after being removed from the pole, due, the physicians say, to artificial respiration as there was little life, if any, in the body when removed from the pole by Lipscomb. There were 2,300 volts in the wire he is thought to have come in contact with.

The transformer on which young Sparks was working was disconnected from the four high voltage wires above, but it is thought that in moving his body, his head touched one of the wires above while his “climbers” or feet were in contact with a “guy wire.”

He had been in the employ for four years of either the city electrical department or the local telephone company and was popular with his fellow workers.

He was a brother of John Sparks, outfielder on the Shelby baseball club, high school champions.

From page 2 of the Concord Times, Monday, June 23, 1924

Last name spelled Lispcomb on first reference and Lipscomb on second reference in newspaper article.

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