KEY POINTS:
The widow of a popular father-of-three has told how he was electrocuted during a freak incident on his farm.
Stephen Potroz, 43, died after the electric fence he was putting up connected with overhead powerlines.
His wife Sally found him on Friday afternoon, but he was dead by
the time a doctor arrived.
"He was just a really neat guy," she told the Herald on Sunday yesterday. "He was always happy and very popular. He had no enemies."
Potroz, a full-time shearer for 20 years, was running the family farm.
The couple's children, Mark, 13, Ryan, 11, and Laura, 9, all went to Inglewood's Kaimata School where Potroz was on the board of trustees.
Principal Dave Roderick used to go fishing with him and described him as "just a terrific guy".
Potroz was running an electric fence up a steep hill when it caught on powerlines.
"We presumed he died of natural causes," said Steve Finnigan, the doctor who attended the accident.
But when a neighbour stopped by and decided to finish the job the dead man had started, it became clear Potroz had not died of a heart attack at all.
Lyall Bunn, who owns a neighbouring farm but lives in New Plymouth, was on his way home when he came across the aftermath of the accident.
"We were just sitting down chatting and he said, 'While I'm here, I'll finish putting up the fence'," said Finnigan. "He picked up the fence and walked up the hill a couple of steps, then collapsed and had a convulsion.
"I went to grab him then suddenly thought, 'What are the chances of these two medical events happening at random so close together? There's something wrong with that wire'."
The doctor wrapped a polar fleece around the wire and removed it from Bunn's hand.
Bunn, whose hand was badly burned, convulsed again before regaining consciousness.
When Finnigan checked the dead man, he found a similar
burn. "It was lucky that Dr Finnigan was on hand at the time and took quick action that probably saved him," said Senior Constable Alistair Balsom of Inglewood police.
The Taranaki Rescue helicopter had been on its way but had turned back after being told Potroz was dead. "Almost immediately we got another call to say there'd been a second incident at the farm, so we fired up the helicopter and went back out there," said pilot David Manduell.
Bunn was flown to Taranaki Base Hospital where he was kept overnight before being discharged.