According to the Pershing County Sheriff, a man was flown to a trauma center after getting electrocuted during a rainstorm at Burning Man.
During a Tuesday night rainstorm that followed a weekend of dust storms and downpours, a man was electrocuted on the Burning Man event site in Nevada‘s Black Rock Desert.
The details of the incident remain scarce. Pershing County Sherriff Jerry Allen told the Reno Gazette-Journal that his office was “able to verify a male was airlifted for a report of electrocution,” but that Burning Man’s organizers would provide an update on the man’s condition. In a statement, the Burning Man Project cited patient confidentiality as the reason it does not disclose information about the condition of specific individuals.
Burning Man did, however, issue a statement encouraging those on site to exercise caution while operating machinery during the rainstorm. “Keep all cables, plugs, and generators dry and covered,” it reads. “Elevate connections and seal them with electrical tape. Never run a generator or powered gear sitting in water.”
The gates to the festival closed around 6:30pm local time on Tuesday night to discourage attendees from driving in and out of the event, as wet playa can act as cement and stop vehicles in their tracks. The rain had stopped by morning, but standing water led the organizers to keep the gates closed until about 12:30pm on Wednesday.
While the rainstorms have put a damper on countless activities hosted by the more than 1,100 autonomous theme camps participating in Burning Man, Sunday’s dust storm did the most damage by far. Gusts were strong enough to bend metal support poles, and they completely destroyed innumerable dwellings, the “Black Cloud” art piece, and the infamous Orgy Dome.
This developing story will be updated with additional details as they become available.
