Suspicious of flash voltage protection

I have been using a Wein HSHS adaptor to protect my Fuji S2 Pro from the voltage of my Vivitar 285 flash for quite some time. A few days ago, I picked up the camera to take a couple of shots. The first exposure was a little under but the second resulted in first an “err” message followed by loss of all power to the camera with the mirror stuck in the “up” position. All batteries are fresh. The Fuji now appears to be a paper weight. Fuji’s (very good) tech support is disinclined to suspect the Wein device of letting a spike through to fry the electronics of the camera but I am less sure. I wonder if anyone else has experienced a failure of one of these devices. I have replaced the S2 body with a very clean used one and I am worried about it’s meeting the same fate but I also really like my Vivitar flash.

Ken