Flash burns send man to hospital

One man was injured and transported to Kaweah Delta District Hospital with non-life-threatening injuries he suffered while working near the corner of Westfield Avenue and North Elderwood Street.

The incident occurred during the replacement of an underground electrical transformer.

“We had a planned outage to replace the underground transformer,” said Brian Thoburn, region manager for Southern California Edison.

Only William R. Buckley Elementary and Burton Middle School — both of which are on spring break and have no students — were affected in the power outage.

“In the process, one of our contractors was injured,” Thoburn said. “An investigation is ongoing to see what caused the incident.”

Responding to the area were emergency medical personnel and the Porterville Fire Department.

“It sounds like he received burns and was transported to Kaweah Delta in Visalia, but talking with the crew, he did sustain injuries but not life-threatening ones.”

Thoburn said SCE secured the area and it was unknown if the scheduled work would continue or be rescheduled.

Porterville Fire Department fire investigator Capt. Mitch Sandoval said the department responded due to protocol.

“Any time anyone is injured in a fire-related incident, we respond,” Sandoval said. “It is our protocol to respond to make sure there was no foul play, and there wasn’t. It appears to be accidental.”