Author -

Date:

27 Sep 2003

Time:

22:41:25

Comments

Two of our jouneymen lineman made contact with 7200v URD when the cables they were terminating in a hand hole became energized. The crew had installed a PME-9 swgr and had failed to open the gang switches and had left the cables they were working on connected to the feed bushings. The Operations department energized the main feeders as part of the restoration of the hold-off that the crew had had on the main feeders after the working foreman had returned it, and naturally with the switches closed the fused feeders they were working on became energized. The operations dispatchers missed a step in their switching that said to "check open and tag" the main feeder switches at the new swgr. The crew foreman failed to open the switches before terminating, a standard procedure for us. The trouble shooters doing the switching never questioned the dispatcher when he ordered them to close the main feeder cutouts that energized the swgr. Normally they would have asked who did those steps on their switching orders (a copy of that matches the dispatcher's) since they themselves had not done those steps. As a result, we have two men that have various exit/entry wounds and a long road of recovery ahead of them. Their doctors think they may be back to work in a year. All of the workers involved in this accident were very good at their job, and still they all made mistakes of various importance that added up to an accident. We're a union utility that has a three year apprenticeship and a very good safety record. We just all got to comfortable with routine and dropped a lot of balls at the same time. Any one of those mistakes on its own would have just been one of those near misses or close calls that we have all experienced, but every once in a while the stars align and lightening strikes.