Science: U. S. Victim No. I

Eighty-five stones above Manhattan, in the topmost crags of the Empire State Building, RCA-Victor has a television station from which it expects to resume experimental programs late in June. Visitors without credentials are barred. But Death paid a visit there one afternoon last week.

Work was done for the day and the current in the powerful apparatus was turned off. A potential between 2,000 and 5,000 volts lurked in a condenser. From another room technicians saw a blinding flash. They rushed in to find Engineer Harry E. Lawrence, 33, University of Pittsburgh graduate, sprawled on the floor. The jolt had torn the shoes from his feet. They tried to revive him, failed.

Thus television claimed its first victim in the U. S. Engineer Lawrence might have been the first victim anywhere had not another luckless televisionist fatally fumbled an adjustment year ago in London’s Crystal Palace (TIME, March 16).