Worker badly burned in explosion at factory

MARION, Ind. -- Construction workers cut a live electrical line at a closed Thomson television picture tube plant, sparking an explosion Tuesday morning that left one worker critically burned, police said.\nConcerns about chemicals on the factory grounds prompted authorities to ask those living within three blocks north and east of the plant to leave their homes and close off streets within several blocks to traffic, police Sgt. Del Garcia said.\nHe did not have any details on what chemicals might be at the factory but said firefighters were staying outside the plant as hazardous materials crews conducted air tests.\n"We're just being as cautious as possible," Garcia said.\nTwo other workers and a firefighter suffered some burns and were taken to a Marion hospital, he said. A fourth injured worker was treated at the scene.\nThe badly burned worker was taken by helicopter to St. Joseph Hospital in Fort Wayne, but spokesman Geoff Thomas said he could not release any information about the patient.\nWhile heavy smoke was pouring from a burning electrical transformer when emergency workers arrived about 8:15 a.m., fire and smoke was no longer visible within about two hours.\nGarcia said the injured workers were all in the area of the explosion and that 11 other people inside the building at the time were not hurt.\n"They apparently cut through some live wires," he said.\nThe line was cut inside one of the plant's buildings, with an arc heading out to an electrical station on the grounds of the factory on the city's south side, he said.\nNeighborhood resident Janet Haisley said her best friend's husband was luckily not injured as he was near the person who cut the electrical line despite the current running between him and some of the other workers.\nHaisley said he had not been worried about any danger from the plant before Thomson closed it last year.\n"There's never been any threat," she said.\nLester Lee, a North Vernon, Ind., businessman who bought the plant in the city midway between Fort Wayne and Indianapolis this spring, said he did not immediately know what work was being done at the plant Tuesday.\nNearby resident Wannetta Foard said she heard an explosion and that electricity went out in the neighborhood.\n"It was a big old boom," Foard said.\nAn explosion at the plant in August killed a salvage worker, who police said was using a blowtorch to detach a tank from the outside of the building when it blew up.\nThomson closed the 1 million-square-foot plant in March 2004, costing Marion nearly 1,000 jobs. Lee's company has been preparing to market the building and surrounding land to potential buyers.