RUMFORD – Fay Mason’s first inkling Thursday morning of impending terror came from something as innocuous as a microwave.

It started beeping at about 10:50 a.m., shortly after Mason and her 4-year-old granddaughter, Zoe, made and baked a batch of chocolate chip cookies in the kitchen’s propane stove inside Mason’s trailer at 755 South Rumford Road.

Perplexed, because they hadn’t used the microwave, Mason went to it and grabbed the plug to disconnect it. She was instantly jolted by what she would later learn was full electrical voltage coming from the power line outside.

“All I felt was Zzzzzt! It knocked me back about 2 feet, and, just as it was zapping me, I saw the tree outside on the wires and the wire on the trailer,” Mason said early Thursday evening.

Rumford Lt. Keith Bickford said Thursday morning that wind blew a dead tree in the front yard onto the electrical cable running from a nearby power line pole to the trailer. The fallen tree, which wasn’t very big, pinned the line to the roof of the 12-by-65-foot trailer.

“I’m guessing it energized the trailer,” Bickford said, of the uncommon situation.

Mason immediately tried to call 911 on her telephone. The line was dead. She remembered her cell phone and called for help, contacting emergency dispatchers in Paris.

“The woman told us to leave the trailer and wait for the fire department to arrive, but I told her, ‘Ma’am, everything in my house is metal! I don’t dare touch the door!”

She was then told to stand in the middle of the floor and not touch anything.

“I’m very pleased my granddaughter is as well-behaved as she is. I said to her, ‘Just walk to grammy,’ and she did, and she never moved. She was an angel. She stood right here with me. The only thing she said, was, ‘Grammy, what about the cookies?'” Mason said.

While firefighters sped to the scene eight miles from the station, Mason said she was scared to death that the power surge would cause a fire.

“It blew up my brand-new stereo; I heard a pop. What scared me the most was if it had caught the trailer on fire. I didn’t know what to do if it did catch on fire. We couldn’t get out without getting zapped, because the doors are metal, but I would rather be zapped than burned to death,” she said.

Bickford said it took firefighters 10 minutes to reach the scene, but all they could do was wait helplessly outside until a Central Maine Power crew arrived 10 minutes later to cut the power.

“We were wearing sneakers, but I didn’t dare to move. I was shaking like a leaf by the time they got here,” Mason said.

“If there was a fire, (the trailer) would have been gone by the time we got there. Good God! It’s an older trailer! With that wind…trailers don’t take much to burn. Most old trailers are just paneling,” Bickford said.

After the power was off, CMP workers cut the tree from the wires and reattached the power line and phone line higher up on the utility pole. Mason and Zoe were uninjured.

Mason’s husband, Scott, said the couple had moved to the area two months ago, sick of living in downtown Rumford. He was away at work when he heard the scanner call about his trailer, and his wife and granddaughter trapped. If he had known the tree was a danger, Scott Mason said he would have cut it down and the other dead ones standing with it.

“This was supposed to be my vacation (from Hannaford). I’m supposed to be taking it easy. I called my daughter and let her know we were all safe, and then I told her what happened. We were electrified. That’s one scary feeling,” Fay Mason said.