A small explosion at a Massachusetts technical high school Wednesday afternoon injured a vendor at the school, authorities confirmed.
Authorities said the the explosion happened at Essex Technical High School's fish barn, where fish are harvested, and that the injured person, a vendor working on a gas line, was taken to Beverly Hospital to be treated for non-life threatening burns.
School Superintendent Dan O'Connell said no students or staff members were injured.
"I started walking down the stairs and all of a sudden, we heard this big explosion," student Hannah Ricketts said.
"We walked outside. Everyone told us to go back inside. It smelled like gas," student Angela DeBernardi said.
The brand new regional vocational and agricultural high school, which serves cities and towns throughout the North Shore, just opened this fall. The main building was not impacted.
By nightfall, the shed was boarded up, the roof damaged with insulation thrown feet away in the blast. The windowless structure was in the process of being winterized, according to a school official.
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National Grid crews are working with safety officials to figure out how this happened.
Students know they are fortunate it was nothing worse.
"Everyone was wondering what was going on, but everyone acted like everything was fine. Nobody panicked. We handled it fine," DeBernardi said.
O'Connell said the school was never closed and will be open on Thursday.
