School maintenance man eletrocuted while working on light

Status
Not open for further replies.
thats why you shut the lights off and lock out the switch or breaker. he could of walked right overto the switch and shut it off and locked it out. 2 minutes of extra work would of saved his life
 
I got zapped doing the same thing. Did it 100 + times. Luckly my arm was resting on the rafters and it went through my arm and dropped into the cage.
Didn't want to shut down production. From that point on I always did lockout/tagout and verify with the meter.
 
I knew an electrician who was told to replace a couple of 277v ballasts. His supervisor told him to carefully change them out while the circuit is hot. The customer said they need the lighting from other lights on the same circuit and can't afford to work in the dark.
 
muskiedog said:
I got zapped doing the same thing. Did it 100 + times. QUOTE]

We all have and do. This was absolutely needless.

What the heck is wrong with us!!
Tell ya 1 thing, now that I'm 40+ I look at the whole situation differently (most of the time), Sometimes I'm still "stupid".
Click to expand...
 
Safety first

Safety first

I hear employers say safety first all the time, but usually they mean safety first unless the job is taking to long.:cool:
 
Stuff like this will continue to happen as long as electricians and others in the industry continue to needlessly work on live equipment .
 
I once wsas called to check a stairwell incandesant hi hat that the owner said was burning the bulb out once a week
long story short - I was checking the connections to make sure they were tight and the nuetral safety crimp came off and touched my hand and I got the living daylights knocked out me - fell off ladder screaming trying to get off the ceiling grid - as I layed there in the stairwell (no one heard me scream or came to my aid ) I realized that that fixture was on an emergency circuit and had flouresants ahead of it and behind it and that was what was causing the buld to burn out and me getting almost killed the super high nuetral load created by the flouresants
 
energized equipment

energized equipment

peter d said:
Stuff like this will continue to happen as long as electricians and others in the industry continue to needlessly work on live equipment .
Click to expand...
You are right Peter. What a sad loss. If you read recent post on this you will once again see another "debate" on this topic. Bob posted osha's requirements also, and it says " at no time work it hot" but you read their exceptions, and one of them states " unless it eliminates illumination". You shut down power ,you are difinetly going to "lose illumination"!I do not depend on osha to keep me safe anyway. True personnel safety is looking out for yourself no matter how much you may inconvenience people.
 
Electrocution

Electrocution

A very sad event indeed. The article I read said nothing about wether or not this person was a qualified electrician or not. When people find out I'm an electrician they real often want to tell me about the "time they were shocked"and too often treat it as no big deal. After thirty years of dealing with electricity I have no respect for it. Respect is what you have for a female companion the next morning. I remain scared to death of it. I believe having a healthy, not paralizing fear of electricity has allowed me to become an old electrician. The cowboys in our profession get burried. 110 kills far more electricians than high voltage does. Please be carefull everyone.
 
It's lalways sad!

It's lalways sad!

The use of the term ballast, is so wrong and should be well changed.
It does not do the device justice, its a transformer, and treat it accordingly!
 
Actually not uncommon, ballasts are the #1 cause of electrucions in the US (Workplace), I cant remmember the exact figure but I think it was an avg of 290 deaths per year from changing ballasts.
 
zog said:
Actually not uncommon, ballasts are the #1 cause of electrucions in the US (Workplace), I cant remmember the exact figure but I think it was an avg of 290 deaths per year from changing ballasts.
Click to expand...

Just think of all the lives that could be saved if we insisted that such lighting fixtures be connected via plug and cord instead of hardwiring them.
 
Just think of all the lives that could be saved if we insisted that such lighting fixtures be connected via plug and cord instead of hardwiring them.
Click to expand...
Or we could just go back to the old single pin type lamps where the fixture used an interrupting lamp holder. When you took out the lamp you broke the connection to the supply circuit. In most cases this was on the hot side, but you had to be careful because sometimes it was on the grounded conductor. With some fixtures it was on both.
Don
 
Curious

Curious

I wonder how he was grounded? Was he holding on to the fixture with one hand, or was he using an aluminum ladder?.......I would like to know more about how this actually happened....

If he was on a fiberglass ladder and not making contact with the fixture, I don't see how it could happen????
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top