Miley B. Wesson rescued Gertrude Quinn from electric shock, San Francisco, California, January 30, 1932. In a hospital operating room, Miss Quinn, 35, grasped a bare copper wire, which was charged with a current of 30,000 volts of electricity, to attach it to an x-ray tube above the operating table, on which a child lay. She was shocked, and, still holding the wire, fell unconscious to the floor. Wesson, 50, physician, knew that the wire was highly charged, that the current would soon cause the death of Miss Quinn, and that, if the wire swung against the metal operating table, the child likely would be killed and tanks of nitrous oxide and ether in contact with the table might explode. Intending to pull the wire from Miss Quinn and throw it upward in the hope that a spring in a pulley on which the wire was wound would pull the wire up, he grasped the wire. The current caused the muscles of his chest to contract, and he was knocked against an instrument table, lost consciousness, and fell to the floor. His weight pulled the wire free, breaking the circuit. Wesson at once regained consciousness and completed the operation he was performing on the child. He sustained fractures of a vertebra and the right clavicle and was totally disabled for nine and a half weeks. Miss Quinn regained consciousness soon after the circuit was broken. She sustained but slight burns on her hand. 32051-2805
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