A minor car crash brought chaos to Cayman and caused an almost island wide power black out.

Two cars collided on Sparky Drive just after 9pm on Thursday night.

Although the driver and passenger of one car had to be cut free from the mangled wreckage, their injuries were not serious.

But his Ford Ranger smashed into the fence at the Caribbean Utility Company and then into a transmission pole – causing a huge power outage.

A spokesman for the Royal Cayman Islands Police Service said: “Police attended the scene and shortly thereafter joined by Fire Service after it was observed that two persons were trapped in the vehicle that crashed through the fence.

“The collision occurred when a Silver Honda Integra and Gold Ford Ranger were both travelling south on Sparky Drive coming from the go-cart race track when the Ford Ranger lost control and collided with the right rear end of Honda Integra and then subsequently collided with the CUC fence and a pole on the inside of the premises which caused the power to go out.

“Damages were done to the pole. The Ford Ranger received extensive damages to the entire vehicle. The Honda Integra received minor damages.

“Driver and passenger of Ford Ranger were extracted from the vehicle by Fire Service officers and transported to the hospital via ambulance as they both sustained minor cuts and bruises. Occupants of the Honda Integra sustained no injuries.”

CUC crews were on the scene immediately and managed to get the power back up and running just over an hour after the crash.

Pat Bynoe-Clarke, Corporate Communications manager of CUC, said: “The outage lasted from 9:08 p.m. until 10:15 p.m. when power was restored to all customers.

“CUC’s crews responded immediately and worked quickly to restore power in a safe and reliable manner.

“CUC apologises for any inconvenience the outage may
have caused.”

Meanwhile a lightening strike caused massive disruption to WestStar television’s output.

Technicians were still, on Friday, working to fix the problem.

A bolt of lightening hit multiple satellite antennas just before 6pm on Thursday.

Head WestStar Engineer, Charles Stone said: “Unfortunately, it is not safe to work on the damaged satellites during a lightning storm.

Once the storm had passed, repairs began immediately and the crew was able to restore all but the following channels: 12, 21, 24, 27 & 115. According to a WestStar representative, this is a top priority for WestStar Engineers and they are working to restore all connections as soon as possible.