Arcflash incident

[weressl]

This did NOT need to happen.

Wear your safety equipment!

 

[masterinbama]

A solemn reminder of just how dangerous what we do daily really is. We have all been guilty of the "I'm just going to check the amps, voltage or auxiliary contacts syndrome" It only takes the one time to make you realize the dangers.

 

[SEO]

Safety equipment is so important. I hope the electricians make a full recovery. If they would have had the proper PPE on they may not have had any injurys. Still very sad.

 

[sii]

Details...where, when, what happened exactly, the guys OK?

I noticed EVERYTHING is now LOTOed. Are thos company locks or some outside agency doing an investigation? I'm not familiar with the inner workings of OSHA but would they do an onsite investigation of something like this?

 

[hillbilly]

Weressl.

Did that happen in one of your plants?

Man that's scary and really hits home.

I hope the guys recover fully.

steve

 

[highendtron]

I don't see how any of us could ever be too cocky!!! This could happen to anyone at anytime...our prayers go out to everyone involved!

 

[weressl]

Weressl.

Did that happen in one of your plants?

Nope, and if it would have I most likely been unable to post the pictures. I don't know where this happened, nor the identity of the individuals.

Man that's scary and really hits home.

I hope the guys recover fully.

steve

So do I Steve.

As you can see they were not even wearing their safety glasses.

 

[KevinVost]

I don't see how any of us could ever be too cocky!!! This could happen to anyone at anytime...our prayers go out to everyone involved!

Agreed. This is the reason we have PPE. Hopefully they recover.

 

[weressl]

I do not have information on the details of the incident, but whatever happened there are several things that are obvious and other that may be speculative:

• They may have been wearing flashsuit(s) as the shirt on one and the T-shirt on the others do nto show burmark, and the burnt-line is delineated at the neck and hand. You would expect the flashsuit to be discarded immediately, so it would be laying on the floor.
• There were no protective gloves on at least one of the individuals,
• they were wearing hard-hats,
• they were not wearing safety glasses as it can be evidenced from one of the glasses tucked into the hardhat, unharmed,
• They were wearing no faceshield,
• I am not certain, but it may appear to be a backalava under one of the hardhats, appears badly burned, so it may actually not fire rated, but actually contributed to the damage,
• There appears to be no test instruments at hand, only a screwdriver, the screwdriver is badly burned so it was near to the flash, could have been the primary initiator, can not determine if it had an insulated shaft,
• It appears that they might have been trying to replace one of the breakers as the handle, the completely disconnected breaker and a bucket securing threaded rod/clamp is laying there. Replacement is normally done on the bench. The cubicle does not appear to be withdrawn from the cubicle. Now how could the breaker be completely without any wires on and the bucket if they weren't attempting to disconnect LIVE from the main stabs?
• The second person, who may have been the standby person, was close enough to get burned himself. The standby person should stay outside of the restricted approach boundary and be ready to rescue the worker.
• There appears to be no rescue hook.
• Insulating mat on the floor sometimes used although it is not mandated by NFPA 70E, there is none here.
• The work area appears to be clean and neat with sufficent working clearences maintained, you would expect a high standard in all aspect of the operation, alas it does not appear so.

 

[cowboyjwc]

Laszlo,

You posted this just after I posted my question about safety gear, so I made sure that my boss saw these pics so that there would be no question of it's need.

I talked to the local POCO yesterday and he told me to try to find a Nomex shirt. He said that they were only required to wear cotton ones for the level of protection I am talking about, but they found out that 100% cotton is not always 100% cotton. He said a face shield and not just glasses, plastic hard hat, and for inspection purposes leather gloves should be fine.

Stay safe guys.

 

[zog]

Laszlo,

You posted this just after I posted my question about safety gear, so I made sure that my boss saw these pics so that there would be no question of it's need.

I talked to the local POCO yesterday and he told me to try to find a Nomex shirt. He said that they were only required to wear cotton ones for the level of protection I am talking about, but they found out that 100% cotton is not always 100% cotton. He said a face shield and not just glasses, plastic hard hat, and for inspection purposes leather gloves should be fine.

Stay safe guys.

You should be following the NFPA 70E tables for the level of PPE needed for your inspections. The 2009 version added "inspection outside the RAB" as a task for most equipment. Of course you need to carefully read and adhere to the notes sections when using the tables.

 

[charlie]

. . . I talked to the local POCO yesterday . . .

That bothers me. There is quite a difference between a fault in the open air and an "arc in a box". Our linemen are normally out in the open and have no fear (maybe a little) of a fault in that location. Be careful of the source of your information. A better source is Zog on this forum.

 

[cowboyjwc]

Thanks Charlie and Zog,

Charlie, I understand and that's why I said "the level of protection for what I would be working on", such as what their meter setters wear which is different from what the guys who are energizing the transformer wear. Their sticks now have shields almost like SWAT uses attached to them, because they said they were having problems with a paticular fuse they were using. I hope I never have to look at anything that requires a shield.:smile:

Zog, the problem is that I bet most of the electricians that I'm inspecting don't even know what's required. I as a rule will not let them heat up a panel until I know that we never have to open it again. It's actually a rare occaision that I have to inspect anything, other than some smaller stuff, hot. I have been very lucky in my 30 or so years in the field and I sure don't plan on letting anything happen now.

 

[zog]

Zog, the problem is that I bet most of the electricians that I'm inspecting don't even know what's required.

You can set a good example, that how safety practices become the norm.

I have been very lucky in my 30 or so years in the field and I sure don't plan on letting anything happen now.

Dont count on your luck, wear the right PPE for those times you do inspect a live installation. I have had issue with many inspectors trying to observe a GFP acceptance test not wearing the right PPE, I am wearing PPE doing the test and tell them they need to be outside the arc flash boundary, sometime it turns into an issue, most just step back.

 

[zog]

Hey y'all, I have some info comming on this, a buddy of mine is doing the investigation of this and will give me details soon, not much can be released on it right now, but eventually I will post some.

No FR clothing, actually the arc hit them in the face which as odd as this may sound may have reduced the injuries, the flammable clothing they were wearing would have ignited and caused the burns to be much worse and widespread. About 5% of arc flash accidents result in a clothing ignition and 50% of accidents involving a clothing ignition are fatal.

 

[cowboyjwc]

You can set a good example, that how safety practices become the norm.

That's what I'm working on.


Dont count on your luck, wear the right PPE for those times you do inspect a live installation. I have had issue with many inspectors trying to observe a GFP acceptance test not wearing the right PPE, I am wearing PPE doing the test and tell them they need to be outside the arc flash boundary, sometime it turns into an issue, most just step back

I have to count on luck, I'm not that good.

.

Quick story, Was doing some inspections on the roof of a building that did some serious chemical work. While up there two guys in space suits come up and are going to be pouring something into something. I told them to hold on as we were in the middle of an inspection and they told me not to worry that it would be fine. I said, then why don't you give me the suit so I'm sure and then you can go ahead since it's safe. They looked at each other and said, we'll wait.:grin:

Remeber the poster: Safety is no accident.

 

[jumper]

Quick story, Was doing some inspections on the roof of a building that did some serious chemical work. While up there two guys in space suits come up and are going to be pouring something into something. I told them to hold on as we were in the middle of an inspection and they told me not to worry that it would be fine. I said, then why don't you give me the suit so I'm sure and then you can go ahead since it's safe. They looked at each other and said, we'll wait.:grin:

Remeber the poster: Safety is no accident.

Nice post. Just like when someone complains to me about about shutting down power to work and how it is is so INCONVIENT for them, my stock reply is reply is " No problem, you fix it, I will watch." Nobody ever seems say anything after that.

 

[mark480]

We had a guy loose one of his arms years ago in a 34.5 cab and our company finally got all ppe updated. The sad part is the person that was running the plant did not know what can really happen in our field. STAY SAFE STAY ALIVE......god bless these men and hope they are getting better

 

[weressl]

Hey y'all, I have some info comming on this, a buddy of mine is doing the investigation of this and will give me details soon, not much can be released on it right now, but eventually I will post some.

No FR clothing, actually the arc hit them in the face which as odd as this may sound may have reduced the injuries, the flammable clothing they were wearing would have ignited and caused the burns to be much worse and widespread. About 5% of arc flash accidents result in a clothing ignition and 50% of accidents involving a clothing ignition are fatal.

Any more infor on this?

 

[zog]

Any more infor on this?

Yes, this is from Mike Frain in the U.K.

"I've just had word back from Marchwood Power Station and it seems as though the incident actually occurred at a waste to heat site near Heathrow Airport, London. I'll try to follow this up after the Easter holidays to see if there is any further information available. The initial report came from an international contractor working at Marchwood on the commissioning of the station. The report said

"Just a reminder of what can happen if the PTW system is not followed correctly......This incident took place while the contractor asked for getting Breaker information. However; they did not take a work permit and tried to remove the breaker without permission that caused an electrical flash over. This incident gives us a lesson will be discussed and communicate with all of us to avoid such incident to occur.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
On 03/04/2009 at 08:40 hours an electrical flashover was reported while the contractor was trying to find the information regarding 480 KV breakers. This resulted in injuring three contractors employees; one with first degree burn and two with 2nd degree burns. All the victims were transported to clinic for first aid treatment and then transported to Care Hospital for further examination and treatment."

I'm still a bit confused as the 480kV probably means 480volts but this is not a standard voltage in the UK. The other issue is that information of an incident that is probably under investigation by the authorities does not appear so quickly in the public domain here. It is however a solemn reminder of what can go wrong on an ordinary piece of low voltage equipment. Mike "

I have another source working on this investigation, no info from him yet that he can discuss but i will post that when I get it.