A St. Joseph County woman has died after she suffered an electric shock in her home over the weekend.

Police say Sandra Sharp was electrocuted while standing in her flooded basement in her Madison Road home a few miles south of South Bend.

A St. Joseph County deputy coroner confirmed Monday that hospital staff declared Sharp had died from the shock.

“It doesn't help anyone if first responders, police and firefighters wind up becoming subsequent victims,” St. Joseph County police assistant chief Bill Thompson said.

On Saturday morning, county police and firefighters arrived at a home on Madison Road, but they were already losing precious minutes trying to reach Sandra Sharp, who was unconscious in her flooded basement.

“They were kind of cautious going in about the hazard of it still being an energized area,” Thompson said.

Thompson says it appears Sharp was shocked by a plugged in box fan. After cutting power to the home, lifesaving crews started CPR and were able to restore a pulse. Sadly, she died at the hospital two days later.

“If you have standing water in your basements, you have to be aware of where your outlets are, what appliances you might have plugged in,” Thompson said.

After recent rains, plenty of homes just like Sharp's are dealing with basement flooding. Some are installing sump pumps, others ripping up carpet, but experts say standing water is too big of a job for a wet dry vacuum or a fan.

“While people are trying to help themselves, you do reach a point when you need a professional to lend their expertise to whatever you're trying to accomplish,” St. Joseph County Emergency Management Agency director John Antonucci said.

A St. Joseph County deputy coroner says an autopsy will be performed.

Antonucci says any other homeowners with flooding should equip themselves with proper rubber boots, a mask to filter out any pathogens, as for those decades old outlets, he recommends replacing them with ground fault interrupter circuits or GFI's.

If you have standing water, you need to be running a submersible pump that you can feed through an outside window plugged into a generator or a separate power source.