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77-year-old tree worker rescued from bucket stuck 65 feet in air

By John Atwater and Phil Tenser

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    HOPKINTON, Massachusetts (WCVB) — Sky5 was overhead on Tuesday when a tree worker was rescued from a bucket truck on a cold afternoon in Hopkinton, Massachusetts.

The bucket appeared to have malfunctioned while the worker was among the trees near a home on Hayden Rowe Street, which is Route 85, near Echo Lake.

In a statement, the Hopkinton Fire Department said that “the hydraulic arm that was holding [the worker] up failed, preventing the worker from being able to descend back to the ground.”

A technical rescue crew rigged up some ropes and a safety harness to lower Joe Regan, 77, 65 feet down to the ground.

Firefighters were going to have him climb down their aerial ladder, but it was a little too windy, and space was tight.

Regan owns the company and was trimming trees for a customer when the controls in the bucket truck stopped working.

“You’re dressed (warm), and the sun is shining, but you can’t move around and stay warm. By the end of the time, it was starting to get cold. But I mean, it’s just cold. There’s not anything else; it’s not snowing, you know?” he said.

He was up in the bucket for about 2 ½ hours.

“The sun was shining, so it was pretty good. But I didn’t get a chance to finish that tree, which really upset me, you know?” Regan said.

On Tuesday afternoon the temperature in the area was approximately 30 degrees. With the wind chill, the feels-like temperature was 18 degrees.

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