John Cox was on his way to a job in Dedham, Massachusetts, when he saw orange flames coming over the ridgeline of a barn roof in Walpole. What’s going on here? he thought.

Suddenly, he noticed the silhouette of two horses in the windows and knew time was of the essence. The only problem was, he didn’t see any other people around and the barn was clearly on fire.

He is an overhead troubleshooter at Eversource, so he’s used to solving problems quickly. Troubleshooters work on their own, unlike the regular line crews who handle more complex jobs.

They’re out 24 hours a day, and emergencies are part of the job. “I’ve been called many times to de-energize a property so the firefighters can put the fires out without fear of electrical contact,” he said. On any given day, when a power outage is reported, he assesses the issue, and fixes it himself, if he’s able. “We actually troubleshoot things,” he said. “If I can’t, I call in the crews.”

At the Walpole horse farm, he called 911 and then went to the house and pounded on the door. “My first thought was to alert the property owners, if they were home,” he said. “And secondly, to see what I could do about getting the horses out.” He told the owners what was happening and everyone rushed to the barn as a unit.

The biggest challenge he faced was running in the barn and not knowing what to do. “I didn’t know the actual layout of the building, so I tried to follow the homeowners,” he said. “Trying to open stall doors, trying to pull the horses out; it was almost impossible — they’re so big and strong.” The frightened horses were jumping up and down and backing into their stalls in a panic, which was nerve-wracking.

Because he had originally been on the way to a power outage, he was already wearing fire retardant (FR) gear, so he was more worried about the horses. “In terms of my own personal safety, all I could think about was getting kicked or getting stomped on or getting trampled in a barn that’s on fire.”

He knew where the barn door was because that’s where he went in, but in the smoke and heat, he didn’t know where all the other openings were.

The fire had started in the attic. “It wasn’t that smoky at first, but after seven or eight minutes it was at our heads, ” he said. After ten minutes, it was completely unbearable. “The timbers were on fire and already starting to fall down on us. At that point, no one was going into the building.”

After working to save the horses that they could, it got difficult to breathe, so everyone ran out of the barn just as the first fire truck pulled up. Out of the 18 horses boarded in the barn, 10 were saved.

He said that most of the work of corralling and saving the horses was done by the family. Despite everyone’s heroic effort, eight horses died and the barn was destroyed.

There’s a strong culture of safety at Eversource, and sometimes, our employees find themselves in life-saving situations that require quick thinking, as well as safety and first aid training.

He said he was just in the right place at the right time. “I don’t know how many people would just run into a burning building, but I think it’s very difficult not to do that when you hear the horses crying for help and know that they’re pinned in.”