A man who objected to noise coming from a caravan at a Northland campground was electrocuted when he cut through a power cord, a coroner has ruled.

Matthew Andrew Smith, 26, was killed as he tried to use a Leatherman tool to sever a power cord connected to the offending caravan.

Smith, a lighting technician, was later found lying face down with the tool fused to his hand, Coroner Debra Bell's inquest findings reveal.

He died on January 14 2015 while staying at the Whangaruru Beachfront Motor Camp in Oakura.

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His best friend Richard Voschezang and Smith went to bed around 10.30pm. But neither of them could sleep due to a noisy stereo nearby.

Two hours later Smith became frustrated with the noise and told Voschezang he was going to disconnect the power to the caravan.

Around 3am Smith was discovered by another camper, Joshua Basnett, who went outside to investigate why he had no power.

Basnett tried to wake Smith - but received a shock when he touched his body.

The campground where Matthew Smith died.
The campground where Matthew Smith died.

Basnett called for assistance, then unplugged the cord from the power box as smoke came up from Smith's body.

Meanwhile Voschezang was woken by the commotion and came outside to see what was going on. He rolled Smith's body over and found his friend's own pliers embedded into him.

Emergency services were called but were unable to revive Smith.

Police said in a statement that Smith had removed the power cord from the caravan while leaving the other end of the cable plugged into the campground power box.

It then appeared Smith had tried to cut the power cord using a metal Leatherman multi-tool.

The tool was fused into his hand, along with a half-cut power cord.

The power authority completed safety checks of the site's power source and found it was in satisfactory condition.

Energy Safety NZ senior technical officer Bonfield said that requirements for residual current devices, which were introduced in 2013, only apply to new campsite installations.

Therefore the Whangaruru campsite was not required to have RCD protection, the inquest findings said.

Police were satisfied that there was no evidence to indicate foul play.

Coroner Bell recommended that RCD be installed at all New Zealand camping and caravan parks to protect people from the risk of harmful electric shocks. For this recommendation to be effective, caravans should have RCDs installed retrospectively, she said.