Been a while

[truck41trouble]

Hello all,
This may or may not be the right place for this post but here goes. So the last time I posted I here I was talking about being sent down to Texas after the hurricane with a few other linemen. We went, then went straight to Florida. We were working down in Florida, just outside of Tampa the day I got hit with 7200 from a 12.5 feeder. A recloser malfunction upstream cause the circuit to close at the sub and out on the line, there were no physical disconnects open. I was on the ground preparing a splice, I don't remember much. I woke up in icu after 7 days, miraculously with only minor burns on my left hand and an ileostomy from damage to my large intestine and appendix, and 2 stents in some arteries.
All in all I'm thankful to be here. But I'm never relying on anyone to check tags or positions on breakers again. I take full responsibility, after all it's on me to make my work area safe. But the D**e energy line crew we were working with said they had the line tagged as they were working further down also.

I get my ileostomy reversed in January and hope to return to work in March.

I know I'm gonna catch heat on loto.....


Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

 

[jumper]

Damn man, that is brutal.

Glad you are alive and okay, l hope for the best for you as you continue to recover.

PS I am moving this to the safety forum area since that is basically the topic.

 

[Coppersmith]

I have clients tell me all the time they will fix anything in the house except electric. Electric stuff scares them.

I tell them I'm happy to do electric work after the meter, but line work scares the hell out of me.

Glad you made it through that experience. Hope everything heals up good.

 

[Jraef]

I think you have caught all the heat you needed to, people here should leave that be. But thank God you survived and thanks to you for sharing your story. I've seen a lot of "cowboy" attitudes expressed in our industry and seen people being ridiculed for being over cautious. Your story is a testament as to what we should focus on in this industry. Safety FIRST, professionalism second, efficiency third, convenience and speed tied for last place.

 

[gadfly56]

Well, thank God for small miracles. In your shoes I'd be grateful that's all that happened, given the potential for going home in a shoe box.

I have pretty close to zero idea as to what might be involved safety-wise for that kind of line work. Just a smidgen I got from some track training with PATH here in NJ. What would you have done differently? I kinda remember one thing that the PATH electricians did was to ground the conductors on both sides of the work area, but I might be mistaken.

 

[GoldDigger]

Ground jumpers are indeed common practice. As in required by the POCO.

Sent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk

 

[meternerd]

"Identify, isolate, test and ground". "If it isn't grounded, it isn't dead". Nothing much else to add.....thank God and teach what you learned to EVERYBODY. Thanks for sharing. I can't imagine what a mess it must have been down there. The linemen who went to help are the true heroes in my book!

 

[busman]

Agreed. If it isn't grounded, it isn't dead. Period.

Mark

 

[Cow]

I'm just glad you're still here to tell about it.

 

[Sahib]

If it isn't grounded, it isn't dead. Period.

Mark

The jumper should be bonded to the metal post on which the lineman is working. It should not be grounded separately.

 

[Besoeker]

I think you have caught all the heat you needed to, people here should leave that be. But thank God you survived and thanks to you for sharing your story. I've seen a lot of "cowboy" attitudes expressed in our industry and seen people being ridiculed for being over cautious. Your story is a testament as to what we should focus on in this industry. Safety FIRST, professionalism second, efficiency third, convenience and speed tied for last place.

Well said, that man.
:thumbsup:

 

[Sahib]

The jumper should be bonded to the metal post on which the lineman is working. It should not be grounded separately.

The grounding of jumper separately without bonding can cause electrocution of the lineman working on a metal pole in case the line is accidentally energized.

 

[Besoeker]

I'm just glad you're still here to tell about it.

I second that.

 

[gadfly56]

The grounding of jumper separately without bonding can cause electrocution of the lineman working on a metal pole in case the line is accidentally energized.

In the United States, few if any power poles for residential service are made of metal. They are typically pine treated with compounds to retard decay. Without further information from the OP, we don't know what kind of poles the lines where on, but given the voltage it's certainly possible they were wood.

 

[truck41trouble]

The poles we were working on were 60' concrete poles that were double dressed, which means there were transmission/sub-transmission lines and distribution lines. The 34.5 kv sub transmission lines were un touched, while the lower distribution lines were torn and broken by trees. The higher voltage lines were tagged and grounded around the location we were working. The tagout request was filled out for the medium and distribution voltage lines, basically that block of line on both circuits. I signed on under the requester, as an additional worker which relieved me of having to drive the 10 mile run back to the sub. Of course that counted on him verifying his own tagout.

From what I've heard, is that since the substation was offline the person who requested the tagout also signed on to the substation tags thinking that they couldn't hot up the station without him signing off. This relieved him of actually having to go and open anything on the line ( or so he thought). Fast forward 3 days, he signs off the tag at the request of his super. Forgetting all he stuff he didn't check Initally. Once the substation was put online, the recloser saw a voltage/no voltage condition and closed in the circuit. I was on the other end of that line, on the ground thankfully. Looking back, that recloser probably saved my life, it sensed a ground fault in .68 milliseconds and opened back up accordingly. Thank god for the AED's on every truck too. All the doctors said that if I wasn't 25 it would have had a different outcome, healthy heart and all...

The lineman who requested the tags was fired by his company, I'm not happy about that. I told them that we are all in charge of our own safety and it wasn't fully his fault. My company disagreed and placed the blame fully on him, so to avoid a lawsuit they took their action. I'm still out on leave, have a surgery to put my intestines back together on the 12th. Hope to be back in March.


Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

 

[truck41trouble]

Well, thank God for small miracles. In your shoes I'd be grateful that's all that happened, given the potential for going home in a shoe box.

I have pretty close to zero idea as to what might be involved safety-wise for that kind of line work. Just a smidgen I got from some track training with PATH here in NJ. What would you have done differently? I kinda remember one thing that the PATH electricians did was to ground the conductors on both sides of the work area, but I might be mistaken.

I would have filled out my own tagout request and driven the line myself. I normally don't rely on anyone, in a mutual aid setting though sometimes it's the easiest way. Local guys know the grid better than the out of staters.

I would have taken a bucket spot ?

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

 

[Besoeker]

The poles we were working on were 60' concrete poles that were double dressed, which means there were transmission/sub-transmission lines and distribution lines. The 34.5 kv sub transmission lines were un touched, while the lower distribution lines were torn and broken by trees. The higher voltage lines were tagged and grounded around the location we were working. The tagout request was filled out for the medium and distribution voltage lines, basically that block of line on both circuits. I signed on under the requester, as an additional worker which relieved me of having to drive the 10 mile run back to the sub. Of course that counted on him verifying his own tagout.

From what I've heard, is that since the substation was offline the person who requested the tagout also signed on to the substation tags thinking that they couldn't hot up the station without him signing off. This relieved him of actually having to go and open anything on the line ( or so he thought). Fast forward 3 days, he signs off the tag at the request of his super. Forgetting all he stuff he didn't check Initally. Once the substation was put online, the recloser saw a voltage/no voltage condition and closed in the circuit. I was on the other end of that line, on the ground thankfully. Looking back, that recloser probably saved my life, it sensed a ground fault in .68 milliseconds and opened back up accordingly. Thank god for the AED's on every truck too. All the doctors said that if I wasn't 25 it would have had a different outcome, healthy heart and all...

The lineman who requested the tags was fired by his company, I'm not happy about that. I told them that we are all in charge of our own safety and it wasn't fully his fault. My company disagreed and placed the blame fully on him, so to avoid a lawsuit they took their action. I'm still out on leave, have a surgery to put my intestines back together on the 12th. Hope to be back in March.


Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

Lessons may be learned but.......
The main thing is, well we all know what the main thing is....

 

[Saturn_Europa]

You are a young man and seem very eager to get back to work. Both are good things. But I would recommend taking all the time you need to rest and heal after the surgery. Any surgery is tough and your upcoming surgery sounds pretty intense. Be sure to take the time you need and find a good physical therapist to help you rebuild your strength.

I've had two shoulder surgeries. After the first one I rushed back to work and skipped a lot of physical therapy appointments. Because I was back at work people expected me to be able to perform and I came very close to ruining the surgery.

The second surgery I took more time off work and it healed much faster.

Thank you for sharing your story.

 

[electricalist]

Thanks for posting. I’m not perfect and I get comfortable as well under certain conditions , having said that every person I train or that works under me I tell them. Don’t ask me if it’s hot,ask yourself. I may be saying this wrong but I’ve found the biggest over sites are made when there’s too many good electricians working too close together. Each believes the other understand what to do and not do. Leading to he knows were working on this and he’ll check his stuff while he’s thinking they wouldn’t close that circuit.
Glad you’re ok and for good humor. You won’t do that no more.

 

[jumper]

Thanks for posting. I’m not perfect and I get comfortable as well under certain conditions , having said that every person I train or that works under me I tell them. Don’t ask me if it’s hot,ask yourself. I may be saying this wrong but I’ve found the biggest over sites are made when there’s too many good electricians working too close together. Each believes the other understand what to do and not do. Leading to he knows were working on this and he’ll check his stuff while he’s thinking they wouldn’t close that circuit.
Glad you’re ok and for good humor. You won’t do that no more.

I understand what you mean. I believe the word to describe it would be “complacency”.

Such as “We are all pros working here, what could happen.......”