CUC blast victim flown to Miami
(CNS): Update Saturday 3:00pm — One of the two men injured in Friday afternoon’s explosion at CUC on Sparky Drive, George Town, 26-year-old Kurt Scott, was airlifted to Miami early Saturday morning for medical treatment. A CUC spokesperson said he remains in critical but stable condition. A CUC representative is accompanying him and his family members will be joining him later today (Saturday 29 January). A second CUC employee injured in the blast, 53-year-old Arney Ebanks, continues to be treated at the George Town hospital, where he is listed in stable condition. Both men suffered burn injuries following the explosion at around 12:30pm Friday in one of the 9 MW Diesel Generators at the North Sound plant, which damaged one engine.
However, Grand Cayman’s power company maintains this has not affected its ability to meet customer demand.
President and CEO Richard Hew said, “The CUC family wishes both of our colleagues the very best as they recover from this incident. Our thoughts and prayers are with them and their families. I would like to thank the Royal Cayman Islands Police Service, the Emergency Services, the staff at George Town Hospital and indeed the CUC employees and other members of the public who assisted during the emergency and who continue to provide well wishes and support to the injured and their families.”
CUC will continue to regularly monitor the condition of both employees and will provide updates as appropriate.
Investigations into the cause of the accident are ongoing. (Photo below by Dennie Warren Jr)
Category: Headline News
Kurt we wish you a speedy recovery,you have the personality to do it…..our thoughts are with you and your family and with all the families involved…..
Red Cross seems to have been everywhere on Friday! Thank you to all of those who volunteer with that wonderful organisation!
I hope more information is forthcoming about the cause of the explosion.
Our prayers are for the injured CUC employees.
Sorry to change the subject a bit, but who is going to pay for the damages incurred at the CUC plant? Is it CUC or will it be the Customer? Will we be receiving a hike in our light bills these coming months? How much?
I think that is a fair question – Is it not?
Fair question? yes. Right time? No! Heartless people like yourself really need to get a life and have enough brains to know when to speak out and when to shut up! Peoples lives are on the line and all you can think about is yourself. Sad, really sad life you must live.
Its called insurance. Use ur brain before asking silly questions.
Maybe. Just improper timing and forum to raise that question.
Dude…really?
That is what you insurance your equipments for.
Is that the same insurance they used to recover their losses from Hurricane Ivan?
Right now you dumb a…..s two men are severly injured with one who might not survive and this is all that you are worried about. Put your energies into praying for the survial and recovery of these men
17:16….I would say you are a perfect example of how callous some people are getting "on island". You have come to accept the daily violence, car accidents, bad driving, crime, and think just about yourselves. CUC is one of the most successful utilities in The Caribbean due mainly to the long time employees. Forget about your friggin bill and start thinking about 2 seriously hurt fellow islanders.
CUC has a good insurance program
Where there is life there is hope! Let us pray that the 2 victims of this explosion will pull through especially Mr. Scott who recieved the 3rd degree burns and has to be airlifted off to Miami. As a community let us pray that he recovers well and On a similiar note, I would just like to ask CUC to please start listening to your staff and when they are reporting “faulty” issues with equipment because from what I understand from conversations with employees within that organization, many things have been overlooked and although I am not in the field of work nor do I have the slightest bit of experience in it, common sense would tell me that if the safety standard is not upheld to its highest then there is potential for all types of catastrophes and I have no clue what sparked this explosion and I must make it clear that in no way am I trying to put them blame on either the company or the employess but from what I gather CUC really needs to get their act together in certain situations.
“I have no clue what sparked this explosion and I must make it clear that in no way am I trying to put them blame on either the company or the employess”
” but from what I gather CUC really needs to get their act together in certain situations”
I find those two statements rather contradictory. If you have no clue what happened, or why, and deny tring to place blame, how can you then go on to cast aspersions on CUC?
I challenge any of the “thumbs down” brigade to post a cohesive argument to defend their position.
My post merely pointed out the inconsistentcies of a previous detractor of CUC, who seemed to be comfortable in casting aspersions while possesing an (acknowledged) lack of knowledge of the facts.
I happen to know for a fact that CUC has an extensive safety policy and an entire department qualified and committed to enforcing, monitoring and continuously push the safety agenda.
They have regular training to make sure that ALL staff are kept up to date on the policy, to which they must read, listen to a lecture and sign that they have attended.
"On a similar note, I would just like to ask CUC to please start listening to your staff and when they are reporting "faulty" issues with equipment because from what I understand from conversations with employees within that organization, many things have been overlooked"
Start listening to employees? If a staff is aware of "faulty issues" there are countless avenues to report this, including the many open doors of Executives, the CEO AND anonymous reporting.
It is irresponsible to make a request for CUC to start listening to their staff when you don’t know the policies, procedures and practices that they have put in place to ensure that this can be done.
Until the cause is determined, it just makes sense to wait to hear the outcome and continue to lift up Mr. Scott and Mr. Ebanks in prayer while seeing if there is anything that can be done to help them or their families through this difficult time.
Let us pray for those injured and their recovery with such an unfortunate incident.
As a country however we need to embrace the concept of strategic infrastructure planning and encourage the distribution of electric power generation by having more than one (centralised) location.
XXX To all the staff at CUC, I do hope that you are all doing well, and to God be the glory, as it could have been worse.