Firefighters race to rescue man badly burned after bucket truck touches Minneapolis power line

A man working in a bucket truck was hospitalized Monday in Minneapolis after he was badly burned when he came into contact with a power line.

Fire crews responded just before 3 p.m. to a truck in the 2600 block of Lincoln Street NE. in Minneapolis, in the alleyway between Johnson and Lincoln streets.

They responded after getting reports of a man with a chainsaw in a bucket truck who was unconscious after coming into contact with the power line, Assistant Minneapolis Fire Chief Melanie Rucker said in an email.

Firefighters arrived and requested that Xcel Energy respond because the truck was still touching live electrical wires. The truck was “not operatable” and crews could not bring down the boom, Rucker said.

After Xcel arrived, the workers shut down the power line and used their own bucket truck to move the man into the Xcel truck and bring him down. He was conscious but severely burned from an electric shock, Rucker said.

The man was hired as a tree trimmer by the house’s resident, according to Xcel Energy spokesman Kevin Coss.

A neighbor who wished to remain anonymous said he was in his home office when he heard a boom and the power went out in his home, followed by shouts from other workers below the injured man.

“The bucket on his cherry-picker (truck) was in the wires,” the man said.

Neighbors estimated he was brought down from the bucket and taken to a hospital around 3:30 p.m. The victim’s condition in the hospital has not been made public, but he was talking after being rescued from the truck, neighbors said.