KINGSTON, Jamaica — A Jamaica Public Service contractor is now in hospital after he was electrocuted while working on power lines on Eighth Street in Arnett Gardens, this morning.

Eyewitnesses say he sustained severe burns all over his body after he and another colleague were attempting to resolve a lack of electricity in the area. The community has been out of electricity since Tuesday. 

When OBSERVER ONLINE arrived on the scene, a crowd of concerned onlookers had gathered, waiting anxiously as one resident was seen on a ladder trying to secure a backstrap around the injured man.

Minutes later, a team from the Jamaica Fire Brigade arrived on the scene and, with the help of residents, carefully and hastily rescued him from the wires.

The contractor has since been rushed to the hospital, although no update has yet been provided on his condition. His identity has also not been released to the public. 

“Me deh in a me house an’ hear one loud explosion… and me run come out and see one van, By the time me look up, me see bare fire pan the post. Me walk come closer and me see the man start swing,” the resident, who braved the dangers of removing the man from the electrical wires, said. 

“Me go ’round and a look, [when] me look the shirt drop over him and me seh ‘Oh! Him dead’. We deh deh and a look pan him same way and realise seh him nuh dead. Me call him friend attention, by the time him draw out the ladder, the ladder short so me tell him fi reverse the van and put the ladder in a the van,” he continued, noting that after a short deliberation he opted to go and rescue the man. 

“When me go up deh now me realise seh the ladder short, so me come back down and run go for one of my backstraps them and try tie him up with it and try fi cut him down. [But] me get fi realise seh him way too heavy.”

He told OBSERVER ONLINE that the contractor was in the community fixing the electricity, since the area out of service since noon on Tuesday.

Another resident who participated in the rescue said the man was severely burnt.

“All him skin drop in a me eye when me a take him down. Him could a die a while ago but the help from the community and the people them, yeah we work as a team,” he stated.

Candice Haughton