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A baseball coach and his wife trying to repair hurricane damage were electrocuted

Posted at 1:59 PM, Mar 11, 2019
and last updated 2019-03-11 17:03:31-04

Like many places in Florida's Panhandle, the Liberty County High School baseball field in Bristol was heavily damaged when Hurricane Michael struck last October.

On Sunday, baseball coach Corey Crum, his wife and their son joined a group of teammates and parents at the field to make some repairs to damage caused by the Category 4 storm.

But that day of repairs turned tragic when coach Crum, 39, and his wife Shana, 41, were killed and their 14-year-old son was badly injured.

As coach Crum operated a boom lift to unload a piece of equipment from a trailer, the boom made contact with overhead power lines, according to Liberty County Sheriff's Office in Bristol, Florida.

The contact electrified the boom lift and coach Crum was electrocuted. Shana Crum tried to help him and was also electrocuted, and their son was injured when he tried to help, police said.

First responders were called to the scene about 12:45 and pronounced Corey and Shana Crum dead. Their son was hospitalized and is expected to recover. The family lived in Sumatra, Florida.

The deaths come five months after Hurricane Michael became the first Category 4 storm to make landfall on the Florida Panhandle. The storm packed sustained winds of 155 mph and killed at least 36 people, authorities said at the time .

Liberty County schools were closed for two weeks after the storm, and the high school lost four classrooms in the vocation building, CNN affiliate WCTV reported in late October.