Firefighters Cushioned Man's 25-Foot Fall With Tarp

Greenfield Fire Chief Jon Cohn said a firefighter’s natural reactions is to “do something,” but Saturday morning, Greenfield firefighters couldn’t do much more than they did.

They arrived at a home on 81st Street near Layton Avenue where a 51-year-old contractor working on a chimney was electrocuted by a high-voltage power line while in a boom lift truck.

The man, who was semi-conscious and had suffered serious burns, was 25 feet up in the air and remained near the high voltage power lines that were still active and dangerous.

“This (incident) was still unfolding and we couldn’t do a lot,” Cohn said. “The machine was in the air. The power was still on.

“We found ourselves in a bystander position.”

Firefighters got in contact with a technician in an attempt to lower the boom, but because of the dangerous circumstances, could not go up to rescue him.

The man, who remained in critical condition as of Monday morning, then began to move and despite firefighters below telling him to stay down, he stood up, reconnected with the power line and was shocked again.

He fell to the floor of the elevated boom, had seizure-like activity and fell partially out of the boom.

Firefighters scrambled to get a handful of plastic tarps, and minutes after six to eight firefighters stretched them out and positioned them under the dangling, injured man, he fell onto them.

Getting the tarps, “was just a reaction to do something. Did we feel we’d completely cushion his fall? Absolutely not," Cohn said. "But we couldn't make it worse for ourselves by putting ourselves in a position that had a lot of risk.”

The man was transported from the tarp directly to a cot and into a paramedic unit, where he was treated and while he was taken to Froedtert Hospital.

Cohn said the scenario is one the department had never trained for, and said firefighters struggled knowing they couldn’t do more for the man before he fell.

“We have such a predisposed want and desire to do something,” he said. “And sometimes we can’t. It’s difficult for the public to understand, and it’s even difficult for us to understand. It was a real difficult situation.

“People have said it’s once in a lifetime. I certainly hope that’s true.”