VIDEO: It was April 2019 when four members of the Peoria Fire-Medical Hazardous Materials Team attempted to enter the APS McMicken Battery Energy Storage facility in Surprise. “When our firefighters opened the door…they gave this monster what it needed, which was air,” said Phoenix Fire Department Capt. Michael Duffy. “It was a freight train coming out of the door,” he said.
The explosion blew the Peoria firefighters through a fence, severely injuring all of them. “I had to learn to walk again,” said Hunter Clare, who is now a Peoria Fire-Medical division chief. “I only had one working extremity at the time. I broke my neck, my back. They had to take my feet off. I had to get those reconnected. Shattered my scapula, broken bones. Lots of different things going on. Traumatic brain injury,” he said.
