Hospital experiences power outage due to mouse, prompting clinic evacuation
Hospital in North Rhine-Westphalia Loses Power due to Rodent-induced Short Circuit
Radevormwald, Germany - A minor rodent infestation has resulted in a significant power outage at a hospital, forcing the transfer of 50 patients to neighboring hospitals during the night. Preliminary findings suggest that the rodent caused a short circuit in the transformer room, leading to a complete power failure in the entire clinic.
The incident began on Tuesday evening when a fire alarm was triggered due to smoke and an overvoltage detected at the transformer facilities in the technical room. Despite backup power generators providing partial electricity, the hospital was evacuated during the night as the widespread power restoration was deemed unpredictable.
Initially, around 30 patients who were due for discharge on Wednesday were allowed to go home. The remaining patients were transferred to other hospitals. As soon as the power supply is fully restored, they will be returned to the affected hospital.
Neither the city nor the Oberbergischer district specified the type of rodent involved. It should be noted, however, that while animals can cause short circuits leading to outages, these are not identified as a common or major source of outages in hospitals. Outages in hospitals are typically caused by broader issues such as equipment failure, weather, and human error.
Although the Enrichment Data mentions that animals can cause short circuits and outages by contacting power lines or equipment, these incidents are reported as a small percentage of overall outages and are not isolated to hospitals. The data also underscores the priority given by utilities to hospitals' power restoration to minimize the impact of outages in such critical facilities.
The rodent that caused the power outage at the German hospital wasn't limited to damaging the transformer, as it also led to consequences in other fields, such as health-and-wellness, with the transfer of 50 patients to neighboring hospitals due to the power failure. This incident, following the short circuit caused by the rodent, also demonstrated the importance of maintaining functional power in science and general-news contexts, such as hospitals, where accidents or mishaps can become more significant due to the lack of electricity.
