Pastor electrocuted in church

2005-10-31 08:05

Waco - A pastor performing a baptism was electrocuted inside his church on Sunday morning after grabbing a microphone while partially submerged, a church employee said.

The Rev Kyle Lake, 33, was standing in water up to his shoulder in a baptismal at University Baptist Church when he was electrocuted, said Jamie Dudley, a church business administrator and wife of another pastor there.

Doctors in the congregation performed chest compressions, she said. Lake was taken by ambulance to Hillcrest Baptist Medical Centre, where nursing supervisor Pat Mahl said he was pronounced dead.

The woman Lake was baptising apparently had not stepped into the water, Ben Dudley said.

Pastors at University Baptist Church routinely use a microphone during baptisms, Dudley said.

"He was grabbing the microphone so everyone could hear," Dudley said. "It's the only way you can be loud enough."

About 800 people attended the morning service, which was larger than normal because it was homecoming weekend at nearby Baylor University, Dudley said.

"At first, there was definitely confusion just because everyone was trying to figure out what was going on," Ben Dudley said in a story in Monday's Waco Tribune-Herald. "Everyone just immediately started praying."

Lake, who had a wife and three children, had been at the church for nine years, the last seven as pastor, Dudley said.

- AP