Friday, July 31, 2015

Man on a bucket lift trimming trees was electrocuted in Vineland, NJ; he was airlifted to the hospital




(Photo: Staff photo/Deborah M. Marko)



DEBORAH M. MARKO 
July 31, 2015




VINELAND, NJ – 

A 78-year-old Pittsgrove Township man was severely injured Friday afternoon while trimming trees using an industrial lift in the 2600 block of Genoa Avenue, west of Venezia Avenue, according to investigators.


Just before noon, emergency rescue teams and firefighters were dispatched to the scene for a possible electrocution and arrived to find the man crumbled on the edge of a lift extended into the air next to utility lines.


Crews from the Vineland Electric Utility cut feeder lines along Genoa Avenue as well as the single line leading down the driveway of the Great Northern Plant Co. where the lift truck was parked.


Firefighters maneuvered their Tower 6 truck down the narrow tree-lined driveway and were able to pull the unconscious worker from his bucket truck and get him back to the ground where Inspira paramedics and the city EMS were waiting. 

The man was reportedly breathing as he was whisked to a helicopter landing zone set up down the road at Petway Elementary School, off Lincoln Avenue.


A Vineland Electric Utility supervisor at the scene said the worker was not a utility employee. The man was reportedly trimming trees as a friend of the family, investigators said.


Fire companies 6 and 5 responded to the scene.


The MidAtlantic MedEvac helicopter flew the man to Crozier-Chester Medical Center in Chester, Pa.