Electrocuted Engineering Student Broke Safety Rule

No investigation is planned or necessary concerning the accident in the Vanberg Laboratory Friday, in which Peter L. Hisbury 3G died of an electric shock, Emory L. Chaffee, director of the Laboratories of Engineering Sciences and Applied Physics, said last night.

The specialized electronics research Harbury was doing involves risk, Chaffee stated, since equipment must often be tested while the current is on.

Iron clad safety devices such as circuit breakers which automatically go on when a laboratory technician approaches apparatus are impractical in work where adjustments on the equipment must be made all the time, he explained.

Broke Safety Rule

Laboratory workers are warned to touch equipment only when they have one hand in their pocket, Chaffee said. Harbury touched his instruments with two hands.

Harbury's colleagues were puzzled that the relatively mild shock he received killed him. "Many of us have taken greater shocks," Chaffee said. Harbury bad only a slight burn on the finger and he wasn't held to the line at all. There was just a flash."

An autopsy was not performed on Harbury, since his family and Cambridge Medical Examiner Leo Myles were satisfied that electrocution had caused death.