Woman injured in UC Berkeley explosion sues, demands answers

Two years after a fireball exploded from under a sidewalk on UC Berkeley campus, a woman injured in the blast is suing the university and demanding answers.

Helena Keeffe was a grad student on campus on September 30, 2013, the day an underground oil-filled electrical switch exploded near California Hall. Witnesses told KTVU they saw a two-story fireball shooting into the air.

“I felt burning on my back and when I turned around I saw very large flames shooting out of the pavement,” said Keeffe.

According to the lawsuit, Keeffee “immediately felt extreme heat and feared she was on fire, so she rolled in a nearby patch of grass.” It goes on to say she suffered “significant emotional harm and psychological injuries.”

 “I had second degree burns on all skin exposed to the blast, which thankfully with the blast behind me, was the back of my neck and sides of my hands,” said Keeffe. “It was extremely terrifying and painful.”

Just two hours earlier, the campus had experienced a power outage that led to mandatory evacuations. At first, the university blamed vandalism for triggering the blast in the oil-filled electrical switch, manufactured by Trayer Engineering Corporation in San Francisco.

But six weeks later, Chancellor Nicholas Dirks wrote a public letter stating that, after further investigation, it appeared that the vandalism had actually been repaired before the blast and the switch had “shorted” while attempting to restore power to campus.

The university filed a claim with its insurance carrier, Zurich Insurance, the day after the explosion. The insurance company launched an investigation and commissioned and compiled an investigative report into what went wrong with the Trayer switch, according to university spokesman Dan Mogulof.

UC Berkeley refused to share the results of that investigative report with KTVU, citing the pending lawsuit filed by Keeffe.

Keeffe says she was promised a copy of that report when it was complete, but has yet to see any results of the forensic inspection.

“In a personal conversation with the Chancellor and some of his staff I was assured I'd be told the results of the report and I haven’t been,” she said. “They haven’t released that information to the public or to me and that is frustrating because there are other switches like that one on several different places on campus.”

According to internal emails between UC Berkeley employees after the explosion, there were more than 100 oil-filled Trayer switches on campus at the time of the blast, including 19 underground switches. The university would not confirm how many Trayer switches are still currently in use on campus, or where they are located, citing concerns about security.

“It seems like the school just wanted to downplay the seriousness of the accident,” said Keeffe.

Her attorney, Bobby Thompson, says Keeffe isn’t the only one who deserves more answers about what caused the explosion and whether it could happen again.

“School is supposed to be one of the safest places we have in this country and right now, I think there are a lot of people out there who are concerned that the campus is not safe,” Thompson said.

But the university insists that they have been transparent in keeping the campus community updated on the status of the investigation through public statements on the school’s website and in the school newspaper.

In his statement published on December 16, 2013, the Chancellor wrote that “when the switch failed, it failed fast, literally in less than one-third of a second. As a result, there was no apparent reason to suspect the switch would fail and no time to issue a warning once the switch ignited.”

He went on to say, “Once that forensic work and other investigative efforts are completed, a further update will be provided to the campus community.”

Keeffe says she believes that promise was never fulfilled and she is still left with questions about the results of the investigation.

“I’ve asked several times and have been told that those reports are confidential,” she said. “It’s time to bring it back into the public eye and ask these questions, because the student safety should be a priority and it feels like they are trying to brush it under the rug.”

Keeffe’s lawsuit also names Trayer as a defendant, claiming the switch was “defective in design” and that the company “knew its electrical switches were exploding and causing bodily injuries to people in significant numbers on an annual basis over a period of many years.”

KTVU reached out to Trayer, but did not receive a response to a request for comment.

UC Berkeley released the following statement in response to inquiries regarding the lawsuit and investigative report:

"The preliminary findings from consultants hired by the University’s insurer indicate that the explosion was caused by failure of a defective component in underground electrical switching equipment. These particular electrical switches are known to be highly reliable, so we believe that the defect and resulting explosion were extremely unusual. Nevertheless, because of our paramount concern for safety, our electricians have been working on refining protocols to further minimize the risk of future failures."