Local electrician dead; no lock-out

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peter d said:
I challenge you to a fight. No running allowed. :)
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The last guy that got wound up at me said "I'll challenge you to anything!". I said, "Okay, how about a spelling bee". :D He was a mason. I don't think he'd have stood a chance.
 
mdshunk said:
The last guy that got wound up at me said "I'll challenge you to anything!". I said, "Okay, how about a spelling bee". :D He was a mason. I don't think he'd have stood a chance.
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A young egotistical guy on a job finally got to the older, seasoned worker, so he challenged the young guy during lunch one day.

He rolled a wheel-barrow over and said "I can roll something in this wheel-barrow over to the truck that you can't roll back over here."

"There's no way, old timer! I'm younger, faster, and stronger than you are any day! Name it!"

The older guy pointed to the wheel-barrow and said "Hop in!"
 
My experience has been that safety is the exception and not the rule. Most electricians I run into don't have a LOTO kit of any kind. Work panels hot. No PPE. And they expect you to do it to. Some may say well move on. To where. Most of the EC's are like that where I live. It's not a training issue. It's a compliance issue by companies and fostering a safe workplace. Most don't.
 
mdshunk said:
I went to lunch break once with my lock on a disconnect. While I was eating lunch, a production supervisor had ordered my lock cut off and the machine prepared for production. If I hadn't checked, I may not have known the machine wasn't still locked off.

In hindsight, I shouldn't have did what I did, but I was vocal enough about it to get a man who was nearing company retirement, fired. If I had it to do over, I should have just flattened his car tires or something and got over it. I really didn't think they'd fire him. His lost a lot because of my big mouth.
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most places if you cut a loto lock off without going through the right process first that is the prescribed penalty.
 
petersonra said:
mdshunk said:
In hindsight, I shouldn't have did what I did, but I was vocal enough about it to get a man who was nearing company retirement, fired. If I had it to do over, I should have just flattened his car tires or something and got over it. I really didn't think they'd fire him. His lost a lot because of my big mouth.
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most places if you cut a loto lock off without going through the right process first that is the prescribed penalty.
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Tire flattening? :-?
 
Marc,
"In hindsight, I shouldn't have did what I did, but I was vocal enough about it to get a man who was nearing company retirement, fired." You actually did the right thing. What he did was attempted murder. No excuses necessary.

Bennie or Bernie had a story about removing the fuse and disconnecting the wire, as well as padlocking the breaker off. Some General ordered the lock cut off. Bernie heard the breaker being flipped on and raised ar ruckus. The General ended up in Alaska.

The thing that gets me is that these devices are so expensive. So is the PPE gear [$1700?]. Like $20 for a little peice of plastic. :mad:
Anyway, I once had the pleasure of using a little devise which, when placed over the breaker handle, you tighten a little screw with a small allen wrench. Not many people carry around a small allen wrench. So has anyone heard of this and know where to get one? Otherwise I will have to rely on a strip of red phase tape.
~Peter
 
peter said:
I once had the pleasure of using a little devise which, when placed over the breaker handle, you tighten a little screw with a small allen wrench. Not many people carry around a small allen wrench. So has anyone heard of this and know where to get one? Otherwise I will have to rely on a strip of red phase tape.
~Peter
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are you talking about a breaker lock? I use them on some computer and security camera circuits.

http://www.homedepot.ca/webapp/wcs/...d=10051&Ntx=mode+matchall&N=0&catalogId=10051

http://www.electricsupplyonline.com/prod/murray-breakers/bx031hb_w002350.php
 
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jsharvey said:
James@CHA says "Not that the man deserved his fate, but if you have such disregard for electrical safety then he asked for it."

James, that is pure B.S. and totally uncalled for. People make mistakes and sometimes it costs them dearly. I don't know how much experience you have or don't have so I won't even go there but, I'll bet dollars to doughnuts that at some point you have or will do something that from a safety aspect is questionable at best. Going out on a limb here but, WE ALL HAVE. It sounds from what little info was in the article that there we "unqualified" people operating breakers that shouldn't have been there in the first place. Wiring things up with no LOTO isn't a smart thing to do but perhaps there was a reason and since none of us were there all we can do is second guess his decision process and unfortunately learn another lesson at the expense of a brother.
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My prayers are with the family of Carlton Ellis Jones.

James@CHA, you sir need to get up out of your engineer's chair and get out of the office more and find out what it's like in the REAL world. I suppose you would have more compassion if he had of been an overweight PE who keeled over from a heart attack.
 
1stYearElectrican said:
Another sad day for our trade. Cant imagine what it like for the family to have dad or mom leave for work and and not have then return. Another tuff lesson to be learned by all.

~FyE~
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Problem is, I dont think anyone learns any lessons, according to some on this forum many EC's dont use LOTO and this accident probally wont change that, after all thee are about 400 electric shock faalaties in the workplace in the US each year.
 
zog said:
according to some on this forum many EC's dont use LOTO
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Thats a fact.

The last I read the United States has more then 60,000 electrical contracting companies. I am willing to bet the vast majority of those are smaller shops without any safety programs.
 
zog said:
Problem is, I dont think anyone learns any lessons, according to some on this forum many EC's dont use LOTO and this accident probally wont change that, after all thee are about 400 electric shock faalaties in the workplace in the US each year.
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I disagree, although I am not up to full speed on LOTO practices, I work by myself alot and old habits are hard to break, but I am working safer than I have in the past, and continue to make improvements.
 
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ultramegabob said:
I disagree, although I am not up to full speed on LOTO practices, I work by myself alot and old habits are hard to break, but I am working safer than I have in the past, and continue to make improvements.
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I think in many shops there is a broader awareness of safety other not. And I know some big shops that only pay lip service to safety.

Maybe as the seat belt, knee pad, bicycle helmet generation takes over there might be a better use of available safety features.
 
Minuteman said:
My prayers are with the family of Carlton Ellis Jones.

James@CHA, you sir need to get up out of your engineer's chair and get out of the office more and find out what it's like in the REAL world. I suppose you would have more compassion if he had of been an overweight PE who keeled over from a heart attack.
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I am working in the real world sir. I am currently working in facilities engineering for a large national company's research center. I work with and know a large team of electricians, and see them everyday. So i do have compassion for these guys. Every single electrician on site here carries a LOTO kit in their tool belt, and they know how to use it.

Regardless, the death in question was preventable. If this guy was dumb enough to work on circuit with no Lock-Out, then the compassion goes out the window. Do all the "praying" you like... but please LOCK-OUT the next circuit you work on or you may become a statistic like Mr. Jones.
 
James@CHA

James@CHA

Hey, I know you feel like you need to have some kind of come back because your getting flamed for being a jerk, but its not helping matters to keep speaking ill of the dead. My advice to you would be to let this subject drop.
 
JAMES:

You were there? You have the complete INVESTIGATION report? You dont know JACK!

1. No one should leave the job in a body bag. ZILCH, ZERO, NONE.
2. You do not know all the circumstances DO YOU?


Read some of the post there may have circumstances that put this outside his control and then again maybe not.
 
I was always taught..."If you dont have something of value to add then keep quiet". We all agree it's tragic, we can also agree that none of us did a scene investigation so we can only speak of the details set forth by the report, I would also venture to say that regardless of who we point the finger at for fault this guys family is still grief stricken because of their loss and its extremely unfortunate that he perished performing his duties in the same field we all work in. IMHO I believe the OP was only posting the report to make us all a little more aware of the fact that some companys dont have or use a very structured LOTO program, I dont believe it was intended to speak so harshly of someone who lost their life in such an untimely manner. Honestly, its kind of frustrating and somewhat absurd for someone to make ignorant comments such as "he asked for it" or " If this guy was dumb enough to work on circuit with no Lock-Out".....you are making comments based on what little you know of the situation and I believe that it's quite childish and unethical to post some of the comments that have been made. Lets just all agree that we should ensure that all of our brothers in the electrical trade are well versed in LOTO and that they apply it so that we dont have another post concerning a loss like this and open the door to ignorant comments based little to no information regarding all of the circumstances involved. Thats my 2 and a half cents.
 
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