OxfordPress.com

FAIRFIELD — Defective equipment knocked out electricity Sunday, Jan. 4, for nearly 500 Duke Energy customers, including an area hospital and a department store, according to a Duke Energy spokeswoman.

Power was out for 483 customers in about a 10-square mile radius around Mack and Gilmore roads between 2:14 until 3:05 p.m., according to Duke Energy spokeswoman Johnna Reeder.

As a result of the outage, the cardiovascular unit, intensive care unit and emergency department at Mercy Hospital Fairfield immediately switched over to generator power, according to Mercy Health Partners spokesman Pete Gemmer.

During the outage, the rest of the hospital remained on regular power and patient care was not affected, Gemmer said.

A woman remained trapped in an elevator at Kohl's, 100 Cincinnati Mills Dr., until 2:45 p.m., when emergency crews from the Fairfield Fire Department removed her, according to dispatchers.

The remainder of the Cincinnati Mills mall did not lose power, dispatchers said.

Reeder said the outage was the result of a defective aerial cable.

"We have some underground lines in that area that have to connect to some overhead lines," Reeder said. "Something was defective, we have it isolated and everything is back up."

The term "customer" does not include every person in a household, Reeder said.