MACHIAS, Maine — As of Tuesday afternoon, Machias police were continuing to search for the driver of a vehicle that struck a utility pole Monday evening, triggering a power surge that sparked an electrical fire at Down East Community Hospital in Machias.
The surge, at approximately 9:30 p.m. Monday, filled the radiology wing of the 25-bed hospital with smoke, but none of the patients needed to be evacuated, Machias Fire Chief Joey Dennison said early Tuesday morning. Firefighters were on the scene for about three hours, he said.
Machias police said the driver of the vehicle that struck the Court Street utility pole just north of West Street fled the scene. Based on evidence inside the vehicle, police believe the driver was injured in the accident. The incident remains under investigation.
Hospital spokesperson Julie Hixson said Tuesday morning that no patients were affected by the fire and that the hospital was relying on its backup generators. The radiology department, she said, was using portable technology while electricians worked Tuesday to restore power to the in-house equipment.
A little more detail would make it a lot easier for the public to help, such as a description of the vehicle.
The car must have had some plates on it, to run the registration, to at least find out who the vehicle belongs to. Or check the glove box. Shouldn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that out. If the owner wasn’t driving it, who did they lend their vehicle to and allow to drive it…….
or who stole it…
I thought of that, too. But, it doesn’t say in the article that the vehicle had been reported stolen.
While I am grateful that no one was injured nor evacuated….. why wasn’t an electrical boot/surge protector in place?
Some local yokel out for a joy ride…
Some drunk local yokel. Why do you think he ran?
This is a news story? Where is the detail? How about an update? This sounds more like an outline that the reporter forget to fill out or was tool lazy to follow up on. Try to remember the 5 W’s such as who, what, when, where, and why. 8 hours after the incident I would think you could write a decent story instead of a breaking news blurb.
The hospital never heard of surge protectors? My breaker panel has one…..
Sometimes they fail, but you would think that a hospital that uses some pretty expensive equipment, that they’d have a system in place to prevent surges, but again that could fail.
Yup to all you said. After a faulty drop to my place and the ruination of close to every electrical thing in the house, plus a small fire in a wall plug in, we made the call for a whole house protector. May not always do the job, but it IS cheap insurance. Nobody wants to have exploding lightbulbs while the family is relaxing for the evening! :)
What kind of vehicle was it?