A woman had to be rushed to hospital Wednesday, after she fell down a manhole in the downtown core, shortly after an underground explosion knocked out power to a number of buildings in the area.
Edmonton Fire Rescue confirmed to CTV News that crews were called to the scene of the electrical vault explosion underground, in the area of 97 Avenue and 106 Street at about 7:30 a.m. Wednesday.
The explosion blew a manhole cover off, and cut power to a number of buildings, potentially impacting hundreds of people in the area.
Officials said crews had to rescue a woman who fell down a manhole shortly after the explosion took place.
Emergency crews on the scene had to rescue a woman who fell down an open manhole after the explosion.
“Once we arrived on scene we noticed that there was a manhole behind us that had blown off, it’s part of a utility safe underneath for EPCOR, upon initial analysis of the hole, of the vault, initially we didn’t recognize there was a patient in there,” Brad Hoekstra with Edmonton Fire Rescue said at the scene. “We did do some thermal imaging and once the smoke had cleared we did have a patient that fell about 12 feet down into the vault, and was partially trapped by some of the high voltage wires.”
Crews responded and pulled the woman out of the manhole about 25 minutes after they arrived.
“She was conscious and breathing, looks like she’s had some lower body trauma but all things considered, including the weather and the time she was down in the hole, she’s doing pretty well,” Hoekstra said.
NorQuest College said the power outage impacted one of their buildings Wednesday morning, and advised students to head to a different building until power was restored.
EPCOR later told CTV News officials were working with emergency crews to investigate the explosion, and as of 9:30 a.m., power had been partially restored in the area.
With files from Dan Grummett
