1 Injured After Boiler Explodes Inside Phila. Elementary School
By Mike DeNardo
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- An elementary school in Mt. Airy is closed Thursday and Friday, after a boiler explosion injured a mechanic and knocked out heat to the building.
It was just after 12:30 p.m. when students at F. S. Edmonds Elementary, including fifth-grader Daniel Hargrove, heard a large explosion.
"We were sitting in the lunchroom and the boiler blew up. We heard a big boom. And then we started looking down there. Everybody said it was a fire and we all ran out of the building."
No students were injured but a 61-year-old mechanic suffered burns to the lower half of his body, says district spokesman Fernando Gallard.
"We had an employee that was actually working on that boiler, and then the boiler exploded. We do have a serious injury," said Gallard.
The mechanic was taken to Einstein Medical Center. Gallard says Edmonds will be closed Thursday and Friday, so the school's boilers can be repaired and heat can be restored to the building.
Four hundred eighty students attend Edmonds, a K-5 school.