A Southern California man has died from “high-voltage electrocution” while hanging Christmas lights, according to officials.
Around 10:40 a.m. on Thursday, Antonio Pascual Mateo, a 24-year-old resident of Escondido, was hanging Christmas lights on a roof near a high-voltage powerline, the San Diego County Medical Examiner’s Office said in a news release.
Mateo threw the lights over the powerline, which led to his being electrocuted. Emergency responders were alerted and, when paramedics arrived at the scene, they found him “hanging upside down from a tree,” the medical examiner’s office stated.
Paramedics administered advanced cardiovascular life support and transported Mateo to the nearest local hospital, where he was later pronounced dead. The medical examiner’s office ruled Mateo’s cause of death to be high-voltage electrocution.
A GoFundMe account—organized by Juan Pascual of Escondido—was set up to raise money for Mateo’s funeral expenses and for his remains to be sent back to his birthplace of Guatemala for burial.
According to the campaign bio, after Mateo was electrocuted, he fell down into a tree where he remained trapped for as much as an hour before the rescue team could get him down, as they had to wait until the power company turned off the power. The organizer wrote that by then, it was too late for the first responders to save him.
The organizer said Mateo was a brother, a son, and an uncle who “always took care of his mother and family.”
As of Nov. 27, over 317 donations had been made to the GoFundMe campaign, raising $13,970 of its $20,000 goal.
“Forever young he will remain. Christmas lights forever having a meaning to us, he will remain in our hearts for eternity,” the organizer wrote.
Decoration Danger
There are an average of 160 Christmas decorating-related injuries in the United States each day during the holiday season, with more than 40 percent of the incidents involving falls, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) wrote in a news release.
The agency provided a list of safety recommendations for people during the holidays. The tips include making sure your Christmas tree has lots of water, and looking for the “Fire Resistant” label when buying an artificial tree. Use flameless candles whenever possible but, if you burn wax candles, make sure to put them within eyesight, away from flammable objects, and to never leave them unattended. The CPSC advises people not to string more than three sets of incandescent lights together, and to never overload electrical outlets.
People can visit the CPSC’s Holiday Safety Information Center for more holiday safety tips.