Two Boston Fire Dept. Workers Hospitalized After Electrical Incident

ROSLINDALE (CBS) – Two Boston Fire Department employees were taken to the hospital Friday after one of them accidentally whacked a 25,000 volt cable with a cable he was holding.

The two victims are members of Boston Fire's Fire Alarm Construction crew.

They were on a commuter rail overpass at Canterbury and Seymour Streets in Roslindale just before 11:30 a.m. replacing a cable that's used to activate fire call boxes when they were hurt.

Officials say that as they were cutting down the wire to discard it, it fell on a 25,000 volt line that is used to power the commuter rail.

The worker holding the cable suffered a shock.

"It threw him back. When it happened there was a loud bang or pop," Boston fire spokesman Steve MacDonald said.

That loud bang left the other worker with a loud "bell ringing" in his ears.

Both victims were taken to Brigham and Women's Hospital to get checked out. They were later released.

Frank Ingemi, the owner of Auto Depot heard the pop. He says he's glad everyone is okay.

"It sounded like an explosion. We thought it was a car crash or a truck it was so loud," Ingemi said.

WBZ-TV's Karen Anderson contributed to this report.