Erik Kyshka was simply trying to get a jump on his holiday light business when an overhead power line arced through the ladder he and his friend Filip were moving, sending electricity through his body and stopping his heart. He was released from the hospital on Monday, one week after the accident, and is now recovering at home in South Charlotte.
Kyshka and Filip were moving the ladder between a house and nearby power lines when the shock hit, according to WSOC-TV. “It just shocked through the ladder,” Kyshka said, describing how the current traveled from the line into the metal and then into him. The electricity exited through his feet, leaving wounds that are still healing alongside chest and back pain from what came next.
The shock sent Kyshka into cardiac arrest. His friend Filip and a neighboring doctor, Dr. Nina Connors, who lives down the street from the accident site, began CPR on the scene and kept working on him until firefighters arrived and used a defibrillator to restart his heart. Connors rushed over before emergency crews even got there, and she said she immediately began chest compressions the moment she realized Kyshka had no pulse.
Doctors Were Unsure He Would Pull Through
Even after his heart was restarted, doctors were uncertain whether Kyshka would survive the severity of the shock. He eventually woke up in the hospital and said he struggled at first to process what had happened to him. Now home, he says he's sore from the chest compressions that saved his life and still carries the wounds on his feet where the current left his body.
The psychological toll has lingered longer than some of the physical pain. Kyshka said the weight of the experience and the sheer number of thoughts running through his head sometimes keep him awake until 2 a.m. Still, he says he's doing much better than he could be, and he's framed the ordeal as something that deepened his sense of God's presence and mercy.
A Career Change After a Near-Fatal Shock
Kyshka worked as an entrepreneur hanging holiday lights for hire, often climbing onto roofs and ladders near power lines to get the job done. The accident has changed that calculus. “I'm not going to go to the roof anymore; for now I'm stopping that,” he said, adding that he won't be doing high-altitude installations going forward as he reconsiders his career path.
The Charlotte Fire Department is using the incident as a reminder for anyone hauling a ladder this holiday season: pay close attention to overhead hazards and always use a spotter when working near power lines, the department advises, per the same WSOC-TV report. It's a narrow but real risk — federal data compiled by the Electrical Safety Foundation International shows that contact with overhead power lines was the leading cause of fatal electrical injuries nationally between 2003 and 2010, and that 2,070 of the 70,276 total occupational fatalities recorded from 2011 through 2024 involved contact with electricity.
A separate federal review by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health found at least 154 electrocution deaths between 1992 and 2005 tied specifically to portable metal ladders touching overhead power lines, underscoring why fire officials keep repeating the same warning every ladder season. For Kyshka, the warning now comes from hard experience rather than a safety bulletin — and from a neighbor whose quick thinking, and knowledge of CPR, gave him the chance to heed it.
