BAKERSFIELD, Calif. One man had his leg severed Saturday and four others were also injured as shrapnel from the demolition of a power plant flew into a crowd of more than 1,000 spectators that had gathered in California's Central Valley to watch it come down, officials said.
The crowd gathered at 6 a.m., some sleeping in their cars overnight, in the nearby parking lot of a Lowe's Home Improvement store in Bakersfield to watch the planned implosion of the steam power plant owned by the public utility Pacific Gas and Electric that had been decommissioned for decades.
After buildings came down in a fiery crash, a police officer heard a man screaming for help and saw that his leg had been blown off.
"It was a piece of shrapnel that came flying out of the explosion and came across and went through a couple of chain link fences," said police Lt. Scott Tunnicliffe.
The 44-year-old victim also had major injuries to the other leg, and may lose it also, Tunnicliffe said. Officials declined to release his name.
Four other spectators were treated for minor injuries, said Kern County Fire engineer Leland Davis. All of the injured spectators were standing beyond a perimeter set up to ensure public safety, Davis said.
Fred Garten, 49, was standing behind the perimeter when a piece of metal roughly the size of a household door came flying at him and grazed his right leg, leaving his socks and shorts splattered with blood.
"It's a good gouge, but it's just scratches," Garten told the Bakersfield Californian, which first reported on the incident. "I just feel bad for the other guy. They took him away on a gurney, and I'm walking."
Kelly Patt, 21, who arrived five hours early to get a good view of the blast, said his girlfriend got sprayed with shrapnel but wasn't badly hurt. Patt said he was far more disturbed at seeing the man with the severed leg.
"I saw that dude's leg and I had to walk away," he told the Californian. "There was a lot of blood, a lot of blood."
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Shrapnel from power plant demolition severs man's leg