Jun 6, 2008 10:37 am US/Central
ComEd Employee Critically Hurt In Accident
Man Was Burned While Working In Manhole
CHICAGO (STNG) ―
A Commonwealth Edison employee was critically hurt when he was burned early Friday during an explosion while working in a manhole in the West Side's Austin neighborhood.
The explosion happened about 2:20 a.m. in the 5100 block of West Roosevelt Road, police said.
Fire Media Affairs spokesman Richard Rosado said a ComEd employee was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital in critical condition, but ComEd spokesman Jeff Burdick said the man was later transferred to the burn center at Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood.
The employee was working in a manhole near the intersection of Roosevelt and First avenues, trying to repair equipment from an earlier outage when an "electrical flash" or discharge of electricity occurred, according to ComEd spokesman Jeff Burdick.
The irregular discharge of electricity occurred from a different electrical cable or line than the one he was working on. Burdick said he was not sure whether it was an explosion or a fire or something "in between,'' that occurred during the flash and the cause of the incident was under investigation.
The incident left 262 customers without power, 250 of whom are in Chicago and 12 are in Cicero, according to Burdick, who said as of 8:30 a.m., the power was still out.
"We're working to get those customers back in service and crews are on the scene investigating the cause [of the flash]," said Burdick.
(Source: Sun-Times News Group Wire © Chicago Sun-Times 2006. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
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