BREAKING: Man hurt as power goes out on North campus

This article contains a picture which some readers may find distressing

Update: 5.23pm

The power went out at around 4.00pm in buildings across North Campus. Shortly after, an ambulance arrived at Dey Hall. Student Davis Burgin was in class on the fourth floor and saw the cause on the south side of the building.

“The power went out and I heard the transformer had gone out, and then I looked outside and saw a person lying on the ground with yellow marks on their legs.”

Paramedics loaded the person into the ambulance. An officer was overheard interviewing a witness, who said he saw a man crumpled with smoking clothes on the ground.

Will, a member of the CDS staff, said: “I was working when the power went out and we didn’t know what happened – then word got back that a maintenance man had been electrocuted. I don’t know if it was a UNC maintenance worker or someone subcontracted. He’s alive though.”


The power has suddenly gone out on UNC’s North Campus.

It was apparently triggered by a generator exploding in Dey Hall.

EMTs rushed to the scene to treat a man seemingly involved in the accident.

We spoke to witness Jennifer, a 19-year-old sophomore, who said: “I was sitting in recitation, and midway through we heard an explosion.

“At first, we didn’t hear anything, and then the power went out. We kept sitting there, and then people started to smell smoke.

“We heard somebody yelling ‘please help!’ and ‘water!'”

Photo credit: Meg Fox

Jennifer added: “The windows weren’t open, and so somebody came in and opened them. Then somebody said they saw a person who was bloody, and that this person was wearing a white coat. After that, it’s really all speculation.

“Somebody in the German department said that either somebody was trying to fix the generator, and it blew, or something else happened and we just don’t know yet.

Photo credit: Bradley Davis

Photo credit: Quincy Rife

“Then the fire alarm turned on, and then everybody evacuated. And then we heard sirens, the ambulance came and took the person.”

A student employee at Carroll Hall said something tripped the mainframe that North Campus is connected to and the power is out campus-wide. The network is also down.

More to follow.

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