TUSTIN : Tree Trimmer Killed When Pole Hits Wire

A 32-year-old man trimming a tree was electrocuted Monday morning when his tree cutter, attached to a pole, became tangled in a power line, authorities said.

Francisco Garcia Santana died instantly when 12,000 volts of electricity surged through his body, county fire officials said.

A cousin, Rodolfo Garcia, who was raking the leaves from branches Santana cut Monday morning, said in Spanish: “I saw the sparks and I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to go up and get him but he was too high.” He estimated the tree’s height to be about 10 feet.

Santana, a gardener and landscaper, lived in Tustin with his wife and three children, ages 10, 8 and 6.

Garcia said Santana’s children weren’t told about their father’s death. “They think he’ll be back and that he’s just ill. . . . We’ll tell them in a couple of days,” he said.

The electric company shut down power at 9:40 a.m., when Santana was killed, while officials investigated the scene and firefighters dislodged Santana’s body from the tree, said Kathleen Cha, the County Fire Department’s director of public information. Power was restored about noon.

The accident occurred on Mountain View Drive at the corner of Irvine Boulevard, behind a two-story medical and business complex, Cha said.

Garcia, the cousin, said friends of the family are arranging funeral services.