Power restored at Central DuPage Hospital

WINFIELD -- A couple of computer monitors apparently overheated, causing smoke and the evacuation of a hospital campus building just minutes after power was knocked out at Central DuPage Hospital in west suburban Winfield on Friday morning.

As of 1:45 p.m. Friday, normal power had been restored, according to hospital spokeswoman Jill Brown. "We're back on,'' hospital spokeswoman Jill Brown said.

About 10 a.m. construction workers digging outside the hospital at 25 N. Winfield Road hit a power line, knocking out power to the main hospital, according to Brown.

Fire crews responded at 10:45 a.m. to an occupied five-story hospital office building where they saw smoke on three of five floors and smelled a burning electrical odor. They found “a couple of computer monitors” on the fifth floor that had burst, possibly because of a power surge that happened when the backup generator kicked in after power was knocked out, according to Winfield Fire Protection District Chief Bryan Lewis.

The building was evacuated but no one was hurt and there were “no visible flames,” he said.

There was no damage to the building and the older monitors were taken to be examined, Lewis said.

According to Brown, a computer overheated, causing the doctor’s office building to be evacuation. “There was no fire,’’ Brown said.

“We did have a computer overheat in one of our private doctor’s offices and as a precaution we did evacuate one of the buildings on the campus for 15 minutes," she said.

As of noon, the hospital remained on back-up power and a disaster safety plan has been put in place, necessitating surgery to be stopped. Brown said there were no patient safety issues from the outage and no patients had to be moved. “It is a little dark in the hallway," she said.

Lewis said about noon that the hospital, which has “full power" from an emergency generator, was on “bypass," meaning it cannot take new patients by ambulance, according to Lewis.

No one was injured during either incident.