An employee at the University of North Carolina was injured in an electrical incident in a campus building yesterday. The accident occurred at 4 p.m. in an electrical closet of Dey Hall, according to a report from The Daily Tar Heel.
According to DPS information specialist Randy Young, the outage was caused when an arc flash struck the employee while he was working in the transformer vault of Dey Hall. The incident resulted in a power outage across the central part of campus, including main gathering spots. By 7 p.m. power was restored to all buildings except for Dey Hall and the nearby library.
People in Dey Hall said they heard a loud noise and the lights went out. About five minutes later, fire alarms went off. One witness saw the employee and thought the person appeared to be unconscious and suffering from burns. The witness also saw a fire. Chapelboro.com reported that a statement from OSHA says the employee was seen “running out of the building on fire.”
The employee was taken to a hospital, and the Chapel Hill Fire Department and UNC Environment, Health and Safety officials are investigating. Officials with the North Carolina Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Division are also continuing to investigate the power outage.
