On Monday, April 27th, the welding classroom inside Lewis-Palmer High School had a sink faucet explode, causing a minor flood in the room. Because there was no specific shutoff valve for the faucet,  the maintenance had to shut off the water to the entire building. Luckily for Coach Romano and his class, they were able to quickly adapt to the situation. When we asked Coach Romano for his point of view, he was great at recounting the event.

“My 6th hour welding class was in the middle of working on projects when one student went to cool metal in the sink and the faucet valve unscrewed completely. So the sink just went poof and Alex Privette was trying to push the valve back in, but he couldn’t. Then we called maintenance and the students built dams and stoppers so they could vacuum it up, so we got it all back in order.” Romano said.

Alex Privette just so happens to be the one student who mistakenly unscrewed the valve. However, both he and Coach Romano agreed that it was ultimately the result of faulty equipment. Privette seemed to be much happier once the mess was handled. The majority of water was actually vacuumed up by the time first lunch had started. When all the water was vacuumed, he called it “quite the feat of engineering.”

Coach Romano was at first worried about Privette when the event initially transpired, but he quickly viewed the situation as humorous. According to Privette, so did all of the other students. He said that only one other student went out of his way to help him.

“When he hollered I was nervous because when kids holler in class, I know it’s something bad. But when I looked over there I knew exactly what happened, so we called services and got it all taken care of. However, I’ll never forget the look on Alex’s face as he’s trying to screw the thing back in the wall… that was just great.” Romano said.

Through all of the humor and problems the situation imposed, many students still talk about the problem. If it happens again, The Ranger Review will be there to cover it.