Northridge electrocution
Father of six was working to clean up and start restoration of Northridge
The father of six who was killed working at the site leaves behind a family seeking answers.
Victoriano Diaz was a jack of all trades.
The father of six children, Victor always found ways to support his family with odd jobs and handyman work, his sister Rosangela Diaz said.
So when the Chinese investors group U.S. Black Spruce Enterprise Group Inc. asked Victor to clean and fix up the abandoned Northridge Mall as the company readied to fight the city’s raze order, he said yes. It was good money.
He hired friends and relatives who needed work, he welded doors shut and he installed security cameras. He’d even return in the middle of the night to chase off people who’d break into the building, Rosangela said.
“The inside — it was just starting to come to life,” Rosangela said of Victor’s extensive cleaning efforts at the mall.
Then Victor died July 22. He touched a high-voltage transformer on the Northridge property and was electrocuted, 4,800 volts coursing through his body.
As Victor and three coworkers were leaving the site about 9 p.m. July 22, Victor noticed the door to the electrical box was open and went to close it, Rosangela said. When he touched the box he was electrified. Victor told his brother-in-law Alex Sanchez not to touch him lest he also be shocked, but Alex reached out to pull Victor off the box.
Alex has a third-degree burn on his arm in the shape of Victor’s handprint as well as burns down to the bone on his own hands, Rosangela said.
Separated from the electricity, Victor curled up into a ball. Alex turned him over and began doing CPR, Rosangela said. He resuscitated Victor for a moment, but it wasn’t enough.
“He just slumped to the floor and didn’t come back,” Rosangela said.
Rosangela’s retelling of Victor’s death differs slightly from a Milwaukee County Medical Examiner’s report. She said Victor never stuck his hand inside the box, as the report indicated, but simply touched the box door. There was a language barrier between officers and Victor’s coworkers and some details were lost in translation, she said.
Vandals had previously broken into the box to take its copper wires, accord
ing to a report from the Milwaukee County Medical Examiner’s Office. The frequent break-ins and the dilapidated state of the mall pose a safety risk to people on the property, city officials have said as they’ve ordered the building demolished.
And Victor believed the electricity was cut off at the mall, Rosangela said. We Energies told the Diaz family after Victor’s death that in general, power wouldn’t have been cut to big transformers like that one.
Victor, 37 leaves behind six children — five of them under 10 years old, and the eldest with a developmental disability — and his grieving wife, Xiomara, as well as nine sisters and a brother.
Without Victor’s income the family is tight on money. Black Spruce hasn’t reached out to the family to offer condolences or compensation, nor have they taken responsibility for the accident, Rosangela said.
Victor’s crew was supposed to receive paychecks on July 22, the day of his death, but as of Friday Black Spruce still hadn’t paid the men, Rosangela said. Alex, who gave Victor CPR and watched him die, got a call from Black Spruce property managers two days after the accident, asking him to return to Northridge and continue working.
“That just lets you know how unimportant my brother’s death is to them,” Rosangela said.
Black Spruce attorneys did not immediately respond to a request to be interviewed about these claims but released a statement after Victor’s death.
“Black Spruce is aware of the tragic circumstances which occurred outside Northridge Mall on Monday evening. We are sorry for the family’s loss and will fully cooperate with authorities,” the statement reads.
Black Spruce is eager to get the site cleaned up. A city commission ruled July 18 the city’s raze order was reasonable after Black Spruce objected to its
“I was waiting for his horror stories about breaking his arm or something. And instead I got to hear the horror story of him losing his life.”
Rosangela Diaz Sister of man who died at Northridge Mall
demolition. An appeal of the ruling is likely. Black Spruce has worked to make improvements on the site, its attorneys said, including hiring private security and maintenance workers.
The preliminary repair cost estimate is $6 million, according to the Department of Neighborhood Services. The building’s assessed value is just over $81,000.
Black Spruce managers hired Victor to fix up Northridge after they noticed his good repair work at his home — a rental property owned by a branch of Black Spruce — and other rentals within the company.
According to Rosangela, Black Spruce couldn’t persuade any professionals to work at Northridge because it is so run down.
“The plumbers, electricians — all those people — they didn’t want to come in until the place was in better shape,” Rosangela said. “So that’s what my brother was doing.”
Victor was proud of the work he was doing at Northridge, Rosangela said. If he could get the site cleaned up, professionals would be more willing to come in to finish the project. He saw the proposed end product — a marketplace of Chinese goods — as a job-creator in an area that needed them.
The Diaz family wasn’t so concerned about the break-ins at Northridge as they were the structural integrity of the place, Rosangela said. She worried about asbestos or something heavy falling on Victor.
“I was waiting for his horror stories about breaking his arm or something,” Rosangela said. “And instead I got to hear the horror story of him losing his life.”
Now, the family is left with so many questions: How to plan a funeral on a shoestring budget. How to tell the young children their father has died. How to confront Black Spruce for compensation. And why a man with his whole life ahead of him died so horrifically.
A spokesman for the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s Office said the investigation into Victor’s death is still underway. Next steps are yet to be determined. Victor’s family will back the push to demolish Northridge, though. It’s necessary after his death, Rosangela said.
“I believe that whatever purpose my brother has to serve in this life, that he already served it,” she said. “Maybe his purpose was to have this building knocked down before many other people died.”