Electrician Pinned by a 120-Volt Line : Accident: Restoring power to a doughnut shop sign, he met up with a hot wire that wouldn’t let him go for nearly five minutes.

In his more than 20 years on the job, Anaheim electrician Robert Rudolph Jr. said he has learned to respect the awesome power of live, high-voltage lines.

Tuesday, on the roof of a doughnut shop, he received a jolting refresher course.

Finishing what should have been a routine task of restoring light to the A.K.’s Donut sign, the 37-year-old Rudolph was “bitten” by a 120-volt line that shook him violently for nearly five minutes, before he was somehow shaken free, and left him unable to call for help.

“It makes me scared to think about it,” said shop owner Fat Chau, who discovered a ghostly white Rudolph with his left hand literally frozen to the live wire shortly after 10 a.m. “I had never seen any one shocked like that before. I thought maybe he was dead.”

But thanks to his partner Wayne Blanas, Rudolph was up and attempting to reconstruct the scene only hours after the incident. Remarkably, a blistered left hand and sore leg muscles seemed to be his only ailments. Although paramedics responded to the scene, they did not take him to the hospital.

Later in the day, Rudolph attempted to piece together the events that led to his near brush with death.

“I knew it was live,” Rudolph said, describing the line and his attempt to fasten wires together. “But it happened so fast that I’m not sure what happened. I tried to yell, but I couldn’t.”

Blanas said he was alerted to his partner’s condition by Chau who screamed, “Your buddy! Your buddy!”

“When I got up on the roof, he was as white as my pants,” said the 35-year-old Blanas. “His eyes were pinned back and saliva was running out of his mouth. He was gurgling and making all kinds of weird sounds.”

Panicked, Blanas said he wrapped a water-soaked shirt around Rudolph’s neck and waited for paramedics.

“When I got down off that roof, I think I was shaking more than he was,” Blanas said.

By noon, Rudolph said he was planning to finish the job and then “probably go in to see the doctor.

“My fingers are still tingling.”