During a heavy snowstorm in New Jersey, a 40-year-old man named Anthony Gonzalez called his dad and promised to come over to plow out the 61-year-old’s driveway. But Gonzalez never made it: he burned up in a car fire in the middle of a snowstorm.

Authorities have pieced together what happened. Early in the morning, Gonzalez was driving to his father’s house. On Summit Avenue near Route 208 in the town of Franklin Lakes, he came up on a series of orange cones with yellow and black traffic barriers stretched across them.

Captain John Bakelaar described the cones as part of several “layers of roadblocks” set up to stop motorists.

For reasons unknown, Gonzalez drove around the roadblocks. That’s when his car struck a downed power line and caught fire.

Gonzalez was killed either by the electric shock or the ensuing fire. One of the many ironies in this tragic story is that Gonzalez had been an electrician for 18 years—the same profession as the father he was going to see.

Captain Bakelaar said multiple power lines had come down in the storm. Police blocked off streets while waiting for the power company to send teams to repair the damage. He added, “We don’t have the resources to put an officer at each hazard.”

Gonzalez’s father said of the tragedy, “It’s like a bad dream…It breaks my heart.”

To make matters even worse, Gonzalez left behind a wife, an eight-year-old daughter, a seven-year-old daughter, and a five-year-old son. The community has banded together and raised $27,845 for the family via a GoFundMe page.

This incident is as heartbreaking as it is ironic—a skilled electrician lost his life to the very hazard he’d trained to avoid. Gonzalez’s final act was one of love and duty, but it serves as a somber lesson for all drivers: if you encounter a roadblock, don’t take any chances. Even if the threat isn’t obvious, it may still be deadly.