The Demise of Dr. Goddard



There was an engineer named Dr. Robert W. Goddard. He built a collage radio station transmitter at New Mexico State University. The transmitter is fairly powerful and was built many years ago. Due to its vintage design the power supply was made of generators with inadequate safety precautions. When activated each day the power supply caused substantial arcing at the switches of the control panel.

Dr Goddard was very safety conscious. He would not allow any students to do the start up procedure. He always did it himself. The control panel area was a wall of technical equipment racks. The control panel area had a chain link fence around it to keep people away and to provide a grounded barrier around it. Each day Dr Goddard would use a broom stick to reach through the chain link fence and press the buttons from a safe distance.

The broom stick was kept in a convenient corner which had a roof leak over it. One day after a rain Dr. Goddard came in and used the damp broom stick to operate the buttons as he had for many years. It was his last day.

You can't be too safe. This is especially true of high voltage electricity.