Tool Box Talk: Don’t Take Chances With Your Safety

Don’t Take Chances With Your Safety

Jolting workers out of an attitude of “it couldn’t happen to me” and getting them to take personal responsibility for their own safety is often an uphill battle. The real life experience of Randy Fellhoelter may help you.

Contributed by Randy Fellhoelter, New Mexico

One morning a few years ago, a co-worker and I were sent out to find and repair an underground cable fault on a residential underground loop: #2, 7200 volt primary cable-back yard construction with dead front pad mount transformers that utilize load break elbows. The night before, another crew had isolated the cable, attached cable warning tags, and stood it off on portable stand-off bushings.

The safety rule in working on high voltage cables is always to test and ground before working on them. However, I had not brought grounding equipment, and my 20 years of high voltage line experience gave me the confidence to take a short cut as I “knew” the line was dead. I was dead wrong. While kneeling, I started to disassemble the wrong electrical elbow, and made contact with the energized 7,200 volt cable. The electricity instantly exited through both knees and blew me upright into a standing position.

Unfortunately, I was still holding onto the energized connection with my right hand. The current could not find a ground path through my neoprene soled work boots and I was engulfed in an electric arc. The electricity finally found a way out of my left thigh to the transformer beside me. This blew a 65T fuse approximately twenty-six hundred feet away, a tremendous amount of default current.

In those few micro-seconds, my life, body and career were changed permanently. I received 2nd, 3rd and 4th degree burns, my right hand and forearm were amputated during one of the many bouts of surgery to which I was subjected, and I endured months of painful burn treatment, physiotherapy, and finally rehabilitation-not to my original job, but to a new career in keeping with my new physical limitations. Up till the moment I touched that wire, I was an active linesman and supervisor of field operations. I had to begin all over again to find a new career to support myself and my family.

Why did the accident happen?

I can point to many reasons, a whole series of events: … we were understaffed . . . there was a communications break down . . . I didn’t expect the cable to be energized . . . my grounding device was in the shop-a 45 minute drive away . . . it seemed “ridiculous” to travel back to the shop to collect it merely for a routine type job when I “knew” the cable to be dead. If any one of those circumstances had changed, the sequence may have been interrupted and the accident probably would not have happened.

Well, why do you think the accident happened?

You can point to the series of events I have just related, or you can give the short answer. The short answer is that I failed to follow standard test and ground safety procedure. I have to accept personal responsibility for the accident. I knew I was not following safety procedure. I knew I should have properly grounded the wires before starting work on them. I knew how to work safely. No one else told me not to follow the safety rule. No one pushed me. No one told me to take a short cut. It was solely my choice.

It doesn’t help after the fact that there were unrecognized hazards. There will always be hazards you wouldn’t expect. To blame these hazards on “others” is hazardous to your health!

Watch out for new workers, experienced workers-and your veterans. New workers are more apt to get injured with their willing, “can do” attitude and inexperience. They, we all know, are at high risk for injury.

The safest workers statistically are those who have been in the job from 2 to 10 years. They recognize the hazards, and have enough respect for them to obey safety rules.

Veterans, often workers of 20 years or more experience, have few accidents. But it is not always because they work safely, sad to say. It is frequently because they know just how much of a shortcut they can take. They have become inured to the dangers, complacent, and over-confident. Veterans may take short cuts in truly hazardous situations.

When these experienced workers do have accidents, they are likely to be catastrophic. I fit into that last group nicely. I had over 20 years experience the day I touched the 7,200 volt wire. I had been working with high voltage cables all my working life. I knew the hazards. I “knew” when I could relax a safety rule.

Please remember this in your job. Please remember it in directing the efforts of people of all experience levels. Explain to new team members that you don’t need unsafe workers who cut corners to get the job done. You need safe workers who live to become productive members of the team.

Remind your safe workers, those who have been around a few years and know and follow safety rules, that the rules never become irrelevant. The rules apply to them today as much as when they were new on the job. Make sure they never let their guard down.

And a final word for the veterans. The most seasoned workers are often called upon to do the difficult tasks, solve the problems, and get the work out quickly and efficiently. They are often recognized and rewarded for their ability to solve problems, deal with tough circumstances. They also are rewarded for doing the job quickly with no fuss. Unfortunately, often they are so useful because . . . they skip tiresome and time-consuming safety rules. They are recognized for their ability to take short cuts. They may be unwittingly rewarded for the very behaviors that put them at risk!

Be aware of this any time you ask an experienced worker to step into the breech. Make sure you never reward anyone for working dangerously. See that everyone is playing by the rules, following safety procedures. Safety rules apply to all. Make sure all your team members take responsibility for following them.

And a bonus quote from Alexander Graham Bell:

“Sometimes we stare so long at a door that is closing, that we see too late the one that is open.”

Thanks to TO for the share!