Minor accidents caused by power outage

BY RAFFY BOUDJIKANIAN raffy.boudjikanian@transcontinental.ca

A power outage in a small area of Dollard des Ormeaux at the behest of firefighters to prevent an electrocution or fire indirectly caused two minor, separate accidents within an hour last Tuesday night.

"It was nothing major. One of our residents got stuck in an elevator and the firemen had to come and get him out," said Lucie Laperrière, general manager at the Château Dolllard senior's residence . "It was over within half an hour," she said.

Meanwhile, two streets down on Frontenac Drive, yells were heard at around 6:30 p.m. when the driver of a dark purple Acura MDX inadvertently struck a little boy.

"There was nothing to indicate that there was any negligence involved,' said officer Carbonneau of station 4, who was on the scene with a first responders' unit moments later to write a report. "Her witness, a passenger in the car, said the driver wasn't speeding. It was dark. There was fog. The power was out so there were no streetlights. She didn't see him on time," Carbonneau said.

"The little boy admitted that he wasn't looking at both sides of the street when he crossed," he said.

The boy appeared not to have suffered any major injuries. Though an ambulance and paramedics joined the parade of fire trucks and police vehicles outside the house and a stretcher was moved into the driveway, it proved to be unnecessary. An emergency worker went into the home and walked the victim out, who then clambered aboard the back of the ambulance to be escorted to the Montreal Children's Hospital.

The driver had proceeded to call the police immediately after the accident.

The power outage was due to a sprinkler malfunction at Fitness Depot on Brunswick Boulevard. "The sprinkler started leaking water near a 600-volt transformer," said Montreal city spokesperson Mélanie Drouin.

The Fitness Depot staff clerk at the time, Estéban, said he discovered the malfunction and alerted the firefighters immediately. "It was over very quickly," he said of the firefighters' intervention.

"In order to prevent an electrocution or fire, the firefighters asked Hydro-Québec to turn the power off in that area so that the problem could be solved," Drouin said.

"The fire department has a direct communication line with us," explained Hydro-Québec spokesperson Jean-Philippe Rousseau. "If they feel the need to turn the power off to take care of an emergency, they can contact us and ask us to do it."

The outage occurred at 6:10 p.m., and power was restored at 7 p.m.



Sporadic outages today throughout the West Island

High winds are causing outages today around the West Island. City hall in Pierrefonds was out of power for a good two to three hours, according to Mayor Monique Worth's attaché Yolande Paquette. "It returned at around quarter to 2 p.m," she said. "When I was out to lunch I noticed that some parts of the borough didn't have power and some did," she said.

Some parts of Pointe Claire lost power, as well as Kirkland. "We were out of power at city hall for a while, but we're alright now," said mayor's assistant Lily Bouchard. "I don't know if it's returned to the whole city though," she said.