I was on a medic unit and got dispatched to a man not breathing under a mobile home. The first responders made scene about 4 minutes before we did. Two men were under the mobile home trying to get a male patient (about 250lbs and 70 years old) out from a confined space. He was in “full arrest”. I crawled under and assisted. I used a simple bedroom knot on rescue rope to drag the patient out. While we were dragging the patient out a responder noticed a wire that the patient was laying on. The wire was not seen before this time. We noted it and continued to move out with the victim. When we reached the outside and began CPR, I noticed that he had two, what appeared to be electrical, burn marks on his arm. We checked the breakers that had been tripped. It appears he was under the house doing some electrical or plumbing work when he cut into a 220V wire and was shocked. We transported to the hospital where he was later pronounced dead.
LESSONS LEARNED:
When I arrived I did not consider the fact of a confined space or that the house may still have power. There were no obvious chemicals or animals (i.e. snakes). I also saw some first responders and ASSUMED that they had secured scene safety. The biggest lesson learned is scene safety is on-going and must be re-evaluated.