His thoughts were cut off by shrill loudness, a long ring from the alarm panel--Damn! There went the rabbit dinner and a nice dry set of turnouts. He whirled and started for his place on the rig as the rest of the crew thundered out of the kitchen gulping down their last bites of lunch. He heard Captain Ryniker give the location at 1337 West Fifty-eight place as Charlie Myers Jumped into position beside him

on the right rear portion of the apparatus. As the heavy rig's frame trembled to the roar of the motor and gathered speed through the doors into the storm, Sechrist pulled his high metal helmet down in place and felt the uncomfortable chill of cold metal on his forehead where the insulation had begun to wear from the brim.

  The speed of the apparatus was necessarily slow and the men riding the tailboard found it advisable to ride low behind the protection of the hose folds. Their turnout coats were snapped to the highest fold but then rain still managed to whip in around their necks and it was a welcomed relief when the rig finally reached the location and rolled to a stop. Lieutenant Ray Snyder and the Captain immediately moved to analyze the situation with Sechrist, Myers and Akes close behind.

  The conditions were evident at a glance. Very little fire, due to the thorough wetness of all combustible materials, but a very vigorous attempt to start a good one on the part of the charged wire which lay twitching atop the wire and wood of a chicken coop. Suspected, though not as yet evident, was the fact that every material substance in the vicinity of the cages was charged to the hilt with a tremendous jolt of voltage. The heaviest charge, it was later found, ran along the exposed portion of wire mesh top into a supporting clothes-line post cable and finally into the clothes-line itself. So heavily laden were these lines with the stored energy of groundless electricity that small arcs were noted jumping small gaps from wire to wet wood. The ground below, being worn by the shuffling feet of many washdays, formed a natural pool of rain water and presented the best conditions possible for electrocution should a human body chance to complete the unholy circuit. Lieutenant Snyder stooped to pass under.

  Ross Sechrist advanced at the rear of the group and witnessed his superior clear the wire with inches to spare. The second man to pass was Akes and finally Myers, all without suspicion other than the natural caution of seasoned fire fighters. Having observed the actions of his brothers Sechrist was anything but hesitant in following their example. Perhaps "Highpockets" wore his fire helmet a trifle jauntily--perhaps the natural spring in his walk raised his body a fraction of an inch too high--but more probably it was due to the height of his frame which earned him his nickname, that the golden eagle which rode so highly in his fifteen years of service chanced to foul the voltage crammed wire.

  The spitting crackle of suddenly released electrons spun the crew around in alarm. Sechrist's body was arcing the circuit to a ground and an acrid swirl of smoke appeared from beneath his helmet to disappear in the wind driven rain. His body stiffened and fell forward, face down, as his buddies ran to his aid. They lifted his stiff form and carried it to the shelter of a nearby porch where respiration was immediately begun. The fire was now of secondary importance, being subsequently extinguished by means of a water gun while ambulance and emergency repair crews were being called to the spot.

  Within a half hour the vicinity was host to both the police and fire department rescue squads, the Los Angeles Gas and Electric Corporation's safety car, the trouble crew of the Bureau of Power and Light, an attending M.D., a receiving hospital ambulance, chief officer's cars and company apparatus and a myriad of helpful rain soaked neighbors, all doing their best to lend a hand for Ross Sechrist's welfare. All through that long wet afternoon the men and doctors worked over the body of Sechrist and when the hands of the watch on the rescue officer's sweating wrist pointed finally to 3 p.m., the victim was pronounced dead by electrocution. Hope, throughout the entire respiration activities, had been very slim due to the round deep hole in Schist's forehead which penetrated to his brain. This was due to the tremendous jolt finding its only outlet through the worn spot in the firemen's insulated helmet and which virtually burned its passage through his brain tissue, killing him almost instantly. As the crews began their sorrowful reloading of equipment in preparation for departure, the body of Ross Sechrist was solemnly covered to await removal to the establishment of Alvarez and Moore at the suggestion of the grief stricken Mrs. Sechrist.

  Fireman Sechrist was dead. Only two short days before Christmas in the year of '26, this man who had but a few years to go in completion of a fire fighter's span of duty had met his death from one of the hundreds of perils that hourly face the firemen of metropolitan areas. Many men have felt the numbing sting of fallen power lines and have walked the gauntlet of charged water, but it was not in their power to judge the death that might have awaited release through the medium of their bodies had the treacherous conditions been right. Sechrist had met a tragic fate which three men before had narrowly escaped. It wasn't a blunder, nor was it a situation rushed into by one who knew the cards were stacked against him. It was a condition faced by every man at every scene of fire, one which lies in wait with its deadly brothers from the moment the alarm panel sounds its warning until the company officer once more reports his crew safe in quarters.