Explosion injures 3 at Oakhill
Three people suffered minor injuries Tuesday morning at Oakhill Correctional Facility near Oregon because of a natural gas explosion on a boiler near a food service room in a building on the prison grounds.
The three men, two Oakhill maintenance employees and an inmate, were performing maintenance on the boiler when the accident occurred at about 8:45 a.m., said John Dipko, spokesman for the Wisconsin Department of Corrections.
The boiler was being re-lit when the explosion occurred.
"All three were taken to local emergency rooms for treatment of minor injuries," Dipko said.
The boiler room is adjacent to a food service room in the lower level of one of the facility's buildings, with housing units on an upper level.
Inmates and staff were evacuated from the building after the explosion.
No one else was injured, and damage was confined to the boiler room, Dipko said.
Oakhill is a minimum-security facility on County M north of Oregon in the far southern rural part of the city of Fitchburg.
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