April 12, 2006 — A Water and Power Authority engineer remained hospitalized at the Schneider Regional Medical Center Wednesday morning after being inured while making routine repairs to the Unit 18 station service meter at the Randolph Harley Power Plant Tuesday afternoon.
The employee was injured, according to preliminary reports, when he touched two phases together causing a "flashover." The flashover, which looks like a bright light, resulted in ultra violet (UV) burns to his eyes and three burnt fingers for the engineer. WAPA spokeswoman Patricia Blake Simmonds could not elaborate further, Wednesday morning, on the man's condition. She said authority personnel would be visiting the employee and would report back sometime Wednesday. Simmonds said she wasn't sure if all of his family members had been notified and therefore his name could not be released.
At 4:38 p.m.Tuesday, when the flashover occurred, Unit 18 tripped, according to a release from WAPA. The authority restored power to feeders by placing Unit 23 into service and returned electrical service within 15 minutes to Feeders 6, 7 and 8.