DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- Rescue crews lifted a 53-year-old worker off the roof of a department store Wednesday afternoon. His co-workers said he was welding something when he dropped dead.

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SLIDESHOW: Images From Scene Of Mall-Top Rescue Attempt

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Electrocution is something police are looking at, because Joe Fitwater was working on an air conditioner. Once his partner saw him fall over, there was no easy way to get him down.

Rescue crews gathered around Fitwater on top of the roof of the Burlington Coat Factory at the Daytona Mall on International Speedway Boulevard (see map). Fitwater and a co-worker were welding inside an air conditioner unit when Fitwater stood up and suddenly fell backward.

"The partner had said he turned around to notice the victim stand up, back up and pass out backward," explained Kris Gray, Daytona Beach Fire Rescue.

The men had climbed up to the roof through an attic access ladder, but there was no way Fitwater could be brought back down that way. The safest solution, firefighters decided, was to use their truck. They braced it close to the building and, carefully, paramedics placed Fitwater in the bucket of the ladder truck and then slowly lowered the entire group to the ground.

"It was too difficult to get him through that scuttle. There would have been no way safely to get him down, so definitely that was the safest route," Gray said.

Rescue crews said Fitwater still had a heart rhythm when they arrived on scene, but they did not find any of the usual wounds they see common to an electrocution. He was later confirmed dead.

Police said they could not find anything out of the ordinary on the roof and that an autopsy will likely have to be done to determine what happened.