Making Our Luck

Dave Smith has been an Industrial Maintenance Electrician since 1975. He has taught maintenance, troubleshooting and safety courses to thousands of electricians in mines, mills, refineries, factories, plants, power stations and offshore platforms throughout North America and the Middle East. Dave is a hands-on guy and teache...

When we’re lucky, we’re given the opportunity to learn from our mistakes before they cost us dearly. At the industrial level, unfortunately, it seems not only are we not learning, we are falling behind.

I have been teaching electrical safety courses since 1980 and, over two decades later, we’re experiencing the same accidents—only with more violent results.

In one accident in 1982, an electrician died when he pulled a 600-volt fuse out of a loaded circuit. Just hearing that makes me shake my head. Every apprentice is drilled and grilled on the stupidity of that action. It is taught at tech. It is reinforced to the journeyman. It is embedded in our memory. Yet it continues to happen. Why?

There are many reasons, but two of the main ones are concentration (or lack thereof) and distractions. Sometimes, we are so busy concentrating on something else that we forget obvious and well-known dangers. (That’s why troubleshooting is so bloody dangerous.) In the 1982 case, the accident was caused by the distraction of two co-worker electricians standing behind the victim. They were chit-chatting about something when, without saying anything and doing it so quickly that no one could have stopped him, the victim reefed out the fuse.

Had the victim attended an electrical safety course the day before and heard the instructor say, “Never pull a fuse under load”, I can guarantee you he would have sat there thinking, “Yeah, tell me something I don’t know”.

So how do we stop these accidents—these tragedies—that are caused by people doing something they know they shouldn’t? Were the situation not so serious, we could laugh about having our heads up our you-know-whats, but the situation is that serious: in this case, a guy lost his life, and one of the other guys was severely burned.

The problem continues, with dire results. Last year, the exact same accident happened––this time on a 480-volt system. One guy in front and, again, two guys standing behind him, chit-chatting. The difference is that, 25 years later, our busses are enormous with huge short-circuit current available.

This time the accident burned two of the electricians to death and caused severe burns to the third. It is guaranteed that all three knew never to pull a fuse under load.

We are all qualified, with years of training and experience behind us––yet accidents keep occurring. So how do we stop them?

We’ve all heard the joke about safety programs (“Don’t move and nobody gets hurt”), but that’s precisely the answer when it comes to working in and around an energized circuit: don’t move until you are exactly, completely, 100% sure of what you are about to do and the resulting consequences. And, when you’re working with others, have a quick tailgate meeting to make sure no one else makes a move before okaying it with the rest of the team.

Because of the unforgiving brutality of high-voltage accidents, the power companies have developed some of the most effective safety practices. One of the best is The Call System: before I make a move, I ‘call out’ to my coworkers, letting them know what I am about to do before I do it; then I make no further moves until I get the return call acknowledging and okaying my move. It is completely ingrained in everyone that safety comes first and no hand moves before the brain evaluates the movement.

In either of the aforementioned accidents, had the fuse-puller said, “I am about to pull this fuse out of the circuit”, there would have been instantaneous argument accompanied by some colourful and imaginative cussing. Ultimately, the act would not have been completed. Both of these accidents—three deaths and three serious burn injuries—could have been prevented with this safe work practice.

Take a harsh look at your safety program: do you have communication procedures in place to prevent these accidents? When you are next on the job and working with coworkers, do you evaluate the detail of your communication to prevent accidents? If not, improve your system.

And, last but not least, have you adopted the PPE requirements of NFPA 70E so that, should an accident occur, there are no deaths and any ensuing injuries are minimal? We are in the 21st Century; let’s use our 21st Century tools and end these 20th Century accidents.

Until next time, be ready, be careful and be safe.