A man was severely injured after he was shocked by a high tension wire while trying to hang an American flag across the middle of a Long Island on Saturday, police said.
The 27-year-old man used a weighted plastic bottle attached to a rope to try to throw the rope over electrical wires, so he could sling up the flag. The man's goal was to suspend the flag across the middle of Buffalo Avenue in East Atlantic Beach for a neighborhood block party. But the rope eventually overhung a 7,620-volt high tension wire, according to police.
In a bid to get the rope down from the electrical line, the man grabbed a metal awning pole and stood on the edge of a second-story porch. As the man was trying to get the rope down using the metal pole, he made contact with the electrical wire and was severely shocked, causing him to go into cardiac arrest and fall off the ledge of the porch and onto the ground, police said.
Neighbors -- including a nurse and off-duty Old Westbury Police Department officer -- ran to the man's aid and performed CPR, while others dialed 911.
The man was taken to a local hospital in serious but stable condition, police said.
