Technician Injured in Peer 1 Power Outage update from December 2009

Colocation provider Peer 1 said a technician was seriously injured during an incident Wednesday night that knocked out power at its data center at 151 Front Street in Toronto. The company said the injuries "appear to be non-life threatening."

The service technician from Eaton Corp. was injured during scheduled maintenance on the uninterruptible power supply (UPS) system in Peer 1's fourth-floor data center at 151 Front, the largest carrier hotel and data center hub in the Toronto market. The technician was replacing a failed fan in a UPS unit.

"During the maintenance at approximately 8:46PM EST there was a visible arc flash (no confirmed cause yet) from the UPS causing 2nd and 3rd degree burns to the Eaton service technician and witnessed by our data center manager who also went to the hospital to have his eyes checked for retinal burns," said Ryan Murphey, Vice President of Facilities & Data Center Operations for Peer 1, in an e-mail update. "The Eaton service tech was transferred to another hospital with a burn unit and was in serious/critical condition and our data center manager was treated and released."

All staff were cleared from the fourth floor suite while the fire and police investigated, but were cleared to return and power was restored about three hours after the incident. Peer 1 said it had additional staff on hand to provide support for customer site restoration.

"Wrap around bypass was inspected for damage by our electrical service company and engaged after given approval by the building, fire department, Toronto Hydro and the MOL (Ministry of Labor) restoring power to the data center suite at approximately 11:31PM EST," Murphey wrote.

Peer 1 provided customer updates on the incident on its support forum.