San Angelo Landscaper Recovering Well after 7200-Volt Shock to System

It’s been nearly five weeks since Armando Sanchez’s work equipment became entangled in power lines in a Beauregard alleyway and he received a 7200-volt shock to his system. Standing in a raised bucket to reach the overhead trees, Sanchez fell to the ground below, the tree-trimming bucket still energized in the lines above him.

Rushed to a hospital and then transported to Lubbock, Sanchez was kept under and pumped full of pain meds for roughly two weeks. Those first two weeks were harrowing, his wife said, as her husband lay mostly unconscious with severe burns all over his body.

“He’s a fighter and of course when they’d let him come out of it…he was still fighting, trying to get the tubes out, saying he had to go to work, he had to go to work,” Caroline relayed. “He was hurting himself more by fighting it than letting his body relax and do its work.”

The shock hit Sanchez on top of his head and in the center of his back, his wife said, burning him severely down to his thigh on one side and to his waist on the other. Several surgeries and skin grafts have been necessary to treat the damage caused by the burns, and he is currently undergoing physical therapy in Midland, while be shuttled back to Lubbock for additional skin grafts.

“From the looks of it, I think the electricity came out his right hand because he had severe burns,” Caroline said. “All his right fingers were burned almost to the bone. He can answer his cell phone if there’s somebody in the room with him to open it. He can’t do the small things with his hands, like opening the cell phone and punching the numbers or whatever.”

Caroline explained that the doctor told her when someone is burned that severely, the damage continues internally even after the heat source is out. She said the doctor told her they may find problems a month or so down the line that didn’t present initially.

So far, she said, Armando has been lucky and is advancing down the road to recovery. If all goes well, Caroline hopes to have him back home in a matter of weeks.

“He’s in rehab learning to walk again and learning to use his hands and his arms,” Caroline Sanchez said Wednesday. “His mind is really good. Of course he doesn’t remember the incident, and that’s the thing that any catastrophic accident or something like that, people just don’t remember the exact happenings. His mind seems to be good.”

Armando and Caroline Sanchez moved to San Angelo from the Houston area in 2000 and started the tree-trimming business around 2001. Since the accident, Armando’s Tree Trimming Service has been shut down, for what the family hopes is only a temporary closure.

“He’s made a lot of friends working in the town,” Sanchez said. “I had I don’t know how many calls asking, you know, what happened and all that kind of thing. Saying they pray for him, which I think helps.”

Armando Sanchez has not been home at all since the accident, but his wife has been diligently traveling back and forth from the Lubbock burn center to visit him. It hasn’t been too bad having him gone, she said, noting an outpouring of support from the community and faith that God will take care of her man.

“It’s just a matter of time [until he can come home], and he really is so very lucky,” Caroline Sanchez said. “Like I say, so many people were so good. A lot of people sent cards with a little money. You know, a dollar or a million dollars, it’s all the same, it all helps as far as I’m concerned. Everybody said they put him in their prayer groups, and that, like I say, I think did more help than anything.”