ATHENS– A man who was electrocuted and severely burned Wednesday while working on the former Brookes Opera House is expected to survive, officials said Thursday.
The man, who is in his 20s and whose name was not released by officials, was a contractor working on the old opera house at 21 2nd St., which is now home to Night School brewery and the former location of Crossroads Brewing Company.
While the man was working, he made contact with a power line on a telephone pole with a piece of metal he was carrying, knocking him unconscious. Two other workers grabbed the man and pulled him into the building through a third-floor window, Athens Police said.
The man suffered extreme burns, said Antonio Fuentes, Athens Volunteer Fire Department second assistant fire chief.
LifeNet helicopter medical transport accepted the call at 2:06 p.m. Wednesday and landed at 2:25 p.m. at Edward J. Arthur Elementary School before it transported the man to Albany Medical Center.
Catskill Ambulance and Greene County EMS responded to the scene along with police. The Athens Volunteer Fire Department was requested to set up a landing zone at Edward J. Arthur Elementary School and to assist in carrying the man down from the third floor due to heavy interior construction.
Night School was closed Wednesday night but reopened Thursday.
Immediately following the incident, Central Hudson Gas & Electric Corp. reported that about 280 nearby homes and businesses lost power. Night School was temporarily closed Wednesday night and Central Hudson had placed bright orange flags on the electrical wires outside the building.
"The cause of the outages was a non-Central Hudson contract worker was working and experienced a shock," Jenkins said.
Power was restored Wednesday at about 2:33 p.m.