Power outage shuffles surgeries at Emerson Hospital

Some Emerson Hospital patients got an unwelcome surprise after a power outage forced the hospital to reschedule elective surgeries. 

Emerson Health President and CEO Christine Schuster said the outage hit a small portion of the hospital from 9:15 a.m. to 3 p.m. on October 3. She said generators “immediately activated as designed” and “essential hospital services” remained online. 

Schuster said administrators postponed surgeries “out of an abundance of caution.” All had been rescheduled as of October 8.

Acton Municipal Light Plant Director Jason Bulger said the problem occurred in an underground conduit that Emerson owns and maintains. Shorting electricity sent steam billowing out of a transformer. 

Concordian Larry Beck said he arrived at the hospital that day for a surgical procedure but was sent home.

Beck said his experience with Emerson has been “pretty good,” and his rescheduled procedure took place October 8, but he would have appreciated more communication from the hospital about what went wrong.

Schuster praised CMLP and the Acton Fire Department and said staff “are grateful to all involved for ensuring we could continue providing the care our community trusts.”