Camden Courier-Post – June 13, 1933
Man and Woman Struck by Lightning; Mercury Tumbles
A violent electric storm, which paralyzed a South Camden woman, accompanied by a driving rain tumbled the mercury last night and ended, temporarily, the six-day heat wave.
The storm came after four persons were added yesterday to the five drowning victims of Saturday and Sunday. Nine persons, in all, have lost their lives in South Jersey waters during the last three days.
The woman paralyzed is Mrs. Mary Bradley, 28, a temporary inmate of the American Gospel Mission Women’s and Children’s Emergency Home, at 517 South Fifth Street. She was struck by lightning.
Edward Saunders, 28, of 520 Jefferson Street, station-master at the Newton Avenue barns of Public Service, was struck by lightning as he sat at a telephone switchboard. He was treated at Cooper Hospital.
Telephone poles, carrying hundreds of wires, were felled in many sections of the city as the sharp flashes of lightning illuminated the sky for miles.
Firemen were called upon to extinguish several fires as the lightning struck various objects. Many “monkey” runs were made during the height of the storm, when false alarms were caused by the lightning flashes.
Yesterday’s drownings made nine since noon Saturday.
Many additional prostrations were reported as the temperature soared to 93 at 3 p. m., within a single degree of the all-time record for the date made 19 years ago, on June 12, 1914.
The thunder showers beginning shortly after 9.30 p. m., toppled the temperature 15 degrees in two hours the first actual relief since last Wednesday.
The weather man predicted “comfortable” temperatures for today, with the level for the day in the low 80’s.
The only heat prostration in the city treated at the local hospitals was that of Miss Catherine Errickson, 23, of 517 Haddon Avenue. She collapsed while walking along Haddon Avenue, near Carman Street, and was taken to the Cooper Hospital. After treatment she was taken to her home.
Lightning struck a storeroom of the Public Service Coordinated Transport Company, Mt. Ephraim Avenue and Border Street, causing a small fire which was soon extinguished.
A pole at Highland and Terrace Avenues was struck and set on fire by lightning, many of the wires burning and dropping to the ground. Another pole at Thirty-seventh and Parrish streets was hit by a lightning flash.
One of the false alarms occurred when lightning struck a utility alarm box at the New York Ship Yard.
Mrs. Bradley was ill at the mission home, and was being attended by Mrs. Adeline Brewim and Mrs. Catherine Bradley, no relation, when the bolt came in the window and struck her bed.
Police were called and took the woman to Cooper Hospital, where she was to have gone tomorrow for an operation, where physicians said her condition was critical. Mrs. Bradley was unable to talk when taken into the hospital and her entire right side was paralyzed.
Police notified the woman’s husband, who was working in Philadelphia, of the accident.
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