One of the State's biggest hospitals was left without electricity for several hours this week after emergency generators failed to work during a power cut.
Power was lost in the theatres, wards, accident and emergency, and the switchboard also went down at University College Hospital Galway when back-up generators failed to kick in, after lightning struck one of its main transformers.
Authorities at UCHG are investigating the reason for the two-hour power failure, but they insist that lives were not put at risk. The lightning tripped the main circuit breaker in the hospital which supplies power to all of the floors.
The bleeping system for doctors, which alerts them when a patient has a cardiac arrest, also went down.
"We were extremely lucky that the blackout occurred so early in the morning before surgical procedures had began. The problems it would have caused later in the day are too frightening to imagine," said a nursing spokesperson.
The problems began when lightning caused a dip in power shortly before 5 a.m. on Tuesday. This caused the breaker to trip resulting in a blackout of the main hospital. A generator kicked in in the intensive care unit and in obstetrics and gynaecology, but these were the only areas of the hospital which had power.
Staff said that if the blackout had occurred while surgery was taking place or if there was a crisis situation in the accident and emergency department, then it could have resulted in a life-threatening situation.
A statement from UCHG said the hospital "now have very good back up for electrical supplies to the hospital as the critical areas in UCHG are installed with Uninterrupted Power Supplies (UPS)".