Man nearly killed after being shocked while hanging Christmas lights

MERRIMACK, N.H. — A 54-year-old New Hampshire man is at Mass General Hospital after getting shocked when the pole he was using to hang Christmas decorations hit an overhead wire.

Police said Bill Desroche was using a metal pole to put up decorations when it struck the primary power line, which carries 20,000 volts of electricity.

“He was trying to get to the top of the tree and decorate it, the really long pole, probably a 20 foot pole,” his wife Karen LaClair said. “The wind must've taken it back, just enough to that hit the live electrical wire. It's in the whole, whatever it was bolts through his body.”

Desroche was thrown to the ground and had burns on his hands and legs from the electricity.

“I was in the kitchen, and I heard the explosion. Saw the smoke, came running out and he was on the ground, semi-conscious,” LaClair said. “I was slapping him in his face, stay with me stay with me, as his eyes were rolling back in his head.”

The incident happened around 2 p.m. on Glen Forest Drive.

Cox Media Group