Teacher Burned Moving Smoldering Exercise Machine Outside School

A physical education teacher at Hamilton-Wenham Regional High School received a small burn on his hand while moving a burning exercise machine outside the school on Tuesday.

The Hamilton Fire Department was called to the school at 10:47 a.m. for a past fire in an elliptical exercise machine, according to Fire Chief Phil Stevens. Stevens said he arrived at 10:51 a.m. to find the gym area smelling of burned plastic.

The machine had been dragged outside and the fire was out, he said.

Principal Eric Tracy said that the teacher had a "dime-sized blister" on his thumb after working with another teacher to move an smoldering elliptical machine from a fitness room to outside the high school on Tuesday morning.

Stevens said it was determined to be a second-degree burn. 

The teacher, who was not identified, was looked at my the school nurse and was able to return to work and did not require hospitalization, Tracy said. He will return to work on Wednesday, he said.

"It was probably about the size of a dime," Tracy said.

Fire crews were at the school until 1:42 p.m. clearing the odor from the building and investigating the cause of the fire. Classes were not interrupted.

The fire was investigated by the State Fire Marshal's Office, who determined it "appears to have started from a battery, Stevens said.