Author -

Underground Accident

This is my personal story of a primary contact I had 11 years ago. The system is 12470/7200Y. I had been in the business about 12 years and was Foreman of an overhead crew. It was mid afternoon on April 15, the weather was clear and warm. My clothing consisted of line boots jeans and a tank top. We heard the service truck taking a trouble call with several blocks out of power in an underground neighborhood. We were at a stopping point on our job so I and another lineman went to help the 2 man service crew. Upon arrival we had a blown fuse on the riser and the service crew had found which transformer had blown.We looked at the the map We opened vault #5650 on the corner to discover a fault indicator showing a red flag so we pulled that elbow and parked it on a stand off. I went to the riser and re-fused the cut out and threw it in, it held. I then proceeded to the open vault to help get the transformer ready to be pulled out of the vault (this particular vault is about 3 feet around and 4 feet deep). At this point we were completely at ease and talking about something as we worked. There were 3 Journeymen and one green apprentice on scene. I lay down on my stomach to reach the pot, my safety glasses are slipping so I take my hard hat off and put my glasses and gloves in the hat, I reach down with my hand and pull the elbow off the pot and drop it, I undo the secondary and notice the elbow is in the dirt so I pick it up and look inside and sure enough there is a little piece of mud in the elbow. Holding the elbow in my right hand I extended the little finger of my left hand and went after the dirt while at the same time looking in the elbow. I tell you what, electricity is very quick. I didn't see or hear the flash, I just went black. The other linemen tell me I came off the ground about three feet, I wouldn't know cause I wasn't there for that. The 60 amp fuse I had just thrown in was blown again.What we had done when we pulled the elbow was killed the run to the west. The fault indicator was wrong. The sensation I had during the next few moments was indescribable I remember hearing this wild screaming from somewhere and it took a bit for me to realize it was me.At this point it felt like I was curled up in a ball with every muscle as tight as it would go and I had some sense that I had been, or was being electrocuted. It did seem as though I felt it when the fuse let go and when it did I had the sensation that my arms were then being drawn back to where my elbows could touch each other behind my back.It was all in slow motion. By the time I came too, only a few seconds had passed,one of the other lineman had ahold of my foot by the heel and was dragging me away from the hole as I rolled over and opened my eyes to see blue sky. I looked at my hand doing an uncontrollable seizure with the hide hanging off the back of it, just above the knuckle of my little finger on the back of my hand was a bloody spot about the size of a quarter. I made a fist to get my hand to quit spazzing out.The first thing I wanted to do is put my glove on and pretend it didn't happen but the more I looked at my hand I realized I wouldn't be able to cover this one up. I noticed the sun felt hot on my face because of the burn and I could taste blood in my mouth from biting my tongue. I could smell the burnt hair and skin. I began to wonder if this was my last moment on earth because I had heard of guys being conscious for a while then dying. I was very luck in that the worst injury was to my hand. Instead of one exit wound I had hundreds of pin holes on my stomach and legs with one a little bigger at the point where my belt buckle was touching me. There was virtually no scarring. I think most of the current went to the semi-con on the elbow. A list of what I feel were the mistakes I made.
1.I was arrogant about my ability to size up the situation.

2.I believed the indication on the fault indicator 100%.

3.I was complacent about being around the voltage.

4.I wasn't focused on the task at hand.

5.I didn't test for voltage, then ground the elbow before handling it.

6.I removed my safety gear.

The moral to the story:

IF IT'S NOT GROUNDED IT'S NOT DEAD

TEST IT THEN GROUND IT EVERY TIME

KEEP YOUR MIND ON YOUR BUSINESS