EGLIN AFB — Patients at Eglin Hospital were evacuated Wednesday morning after a fire ignited in the hospital’s mechanical room and power was cut to the main building.
All but 29 inpatients were evacuated after the fire at 10:30 a.m., and all new patients were diverted to other hospitals because of the power outage, said Sara Vidoni, an Eglin spokeswoman.
A contract construction worker operating heavy equipment outside the hospital accidentally struck a commercial power line, which sent an electrical arc into the mechanical room and an adjacent building, said Lois Walsh, another Eglin spokeswoman.
Duct insulation in the mechanical room caught fire. Sprinklers were activated and extinguished the blaze.
No one was injured.
Power also was lost when the line was struck.
A back-up generator still was providing electricity for inpatients Wednesday evening because power had not been restored, Vidoni said.
All appointments and procedures in the main hospital building were canceled through at least this morning, she said.
Walsh said there was no fire in the adjacent building, but there was electrical damage.
Damage estimates had not been determined as of Wednesday evening.
