Electrical Burn Incident 24-Nov-2003

600 Volt Breaker Panel Cable being removed This panel is mounted on an old Joy transformer skid. Note that the panel was installed upside down. The ground terminations are on the right hand side of this picture

Point of Contact 2 bare ground wires plus pilot wire Ground wires contacted line side breaker terminal

Incident Electrician was attempting to remove the cable from the breaker panel. He had disconnected the 3 phase leads from the load side of the breaker and had requested assistance from a mechanic to pull the cable out of the panel, while the electrician guided the cable ends. He apparently lost control of the bundle of ground wires, which flipped around and came into contact with the line side terminal on the breaker. He suffered severe burns to his hands, arms and to his chest and abdomen. Contributing factors identified so far: 1) Removing cabling without shutting off power completely to panel 2) Panel is upside down - ground leads would have been below breakers instead of above them - line side terminals would have been near the top of the panel, instead of in the middle 3) Inadequate PPE for electrical “hot work”

Consequences This is all that is left of his shirt. He had to tear the burning shirt off of himself after the arc had burned his hands

Consequences Look closely - this is the remains of a notebook that is still in his shirt pocket - you can see that the pocket was burned off the shirt.

Consequences These are the safety glasses he was wearing.

Consequences The victim is 64 years old with 37 years service. On Friday of this week, he and his wife were to have left on a 12 week vacation. She spent part of yesterday trying to cancel airfare and accomodations that had been booked, and is not sure how much of their cancelled trip costs will be refunded.

Learning Opportunities For Electricians: Given this incident, are there any circumstances left under which you will do cabling in an energized panel? Will you allow a partner to do so? For Supervisors, Planners, Superintendents and Managers: Given this incident, are you aware of substandard (e.g., upside down) installations in your area? Will you be assigning electricians to work on energized electrical systems? Do they have and use the proper gear and equipment to do so safely?