AUGUSTA, Ga. — To hear 11-year-old David Sette describe what happened to his friend Melquan Robinson is heartbreaking.
"We tried our best to get him off the gate but (shakes head) it didn't work," he recalled.
Sette was out at Fleming Athletic Complex field in Augusta Monday. It was during football practice. At some point, Robinson apparently leaned up against a fence near the field, which, unbeknownst to them, had a live current of electricity running through it.
“Melquan – he leaned up against the gate, and then he put his head to the gate, too, when he started making noises,” Sette described. “He wasn't moving at all though."
The gate had started electrocuting the 12-year-old boy.
"I kept freaking out because I knew he was gone, because he was foaming out of the mouth, wasn't moving, wasn't talking, wasn't breathing, eyes rolled to the back of his head," Sette recounted.
Sette ran over to try and pull Robinson off the fence, but wound up getting injured as well.
“I put my hand on his back, and then I grabbed the gate at the same time, and then it started electrocuting me,” Sette said. “I felt like I couldn't move. It felt like the electricity was holding me down."
"My head touched the gate, and I just saw a light in my eyes, and I closed my eyeballs and I thought I'd died at first," he added.
Video shows the chaos as it happened.
"I couldn't move! I was shocked! Electric fence," Sette shouted.
Others screamed for them to get off the fence.
Robinson died later that night. Sette was hospitalized, as well as another teen.
Sette’s mother told NBC affiliate WAGT, she was terrified she could have, too, lost her son.
“There's no words to describe it really. It's heart wrenching to hear him,” she said. “I go through these moments where I feel guilty for being thankful. They (Robinson’s family) don't get to take their son home and it breaks my heart. It really does."
But Robinson’s mom, mourning the loss of her son, still took time to go by Sette’s room-to thank him.
"She said, ‘You're such a hero, and you'll have a guardian angel for the rest your life now."
It's still unclear what caused the fence to be electrified. Authorities are still investigating that.
