It sounds like the fault from the bad termination tripped an upstream overcurrent protection device first instead of the local overcurrent protection device, which would’ve taken down more of the electrical system than necessary.
Electrical engineers perform breaker coordination studies to figure out the proper trip rating settings in an electrical distribution network so that the most local overcurrent protection device trips before any upstream devices. A 120V 20A circuit breaker in a hospital might have three or four (or more) overcurrent protection devices between it and the utility transformer.
It is possible that with correct breaker trip settings that this accident could’ve been avoided, but I would need more information than is given in the article to tell.
