The incident started about 4:45 p.m. The man moved close to wires pulsing with some 230,000 volts of electricity. Power crews scrambled to re-route the power.
The man finally climbed into a cherry picker basket at 8:45 p.m.
"He's a very lucky man, I'll say that. There is a lot of voltage that's going through. That was one of our biggest concerns, safety-wise. He managed to get himself in a position where he grounded himself," said Officer Troy Thomas with the Los Angeles Police Department.
The man, whose identity was not released, was taken to a hospital to be checked out.
