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Electrical contact in Texas

It was after 6:00 pm and another long, hot Texas summer day was almost over. This particular crew had been on the job for 12 or more hours and it was near 100 degrees. A rush job, A Lineman with 20 or more years experience, An apprentice and helper. The job was to make a new 3 phase padmount transformer hot and ready for service. The new transformer was to be fed from an existing 3 phase transformer. The cable had already been pulled and terminated in both transformers. The new transformer was now ready to make hot. The lineman tells the apprentice to take a shotgun stick and start pulling the elbow arrestors in the "H-2" bushings. The Lineman then instructs the aspprentice to plug in the A phase elbow, the apprentice tells the lineman that he should be using parking stands for the other two phases. After a brief disscussion, the apprentice plugs in the A phase elbow, making one phase hot in the new transformer. Meanwhile the Lineman was bent over in the primary side of the transformer cutting the ground tails off of the arrestors. It was at this time that the Lineman leaned back into a probe of one of the other two elbows that were folded back behind him. The line voltage was 14.4 kv, I have heard much debate over whether the back-feed was a full 14.4 kv. Either way this Lineman is a lucky man to still be alive. I have heard that he has since fully recovered and is back at work. I hope that every Lineman who reads this account can learn as much as I have from this. 1. No rush job is worth your life 2. Listen to the in-put from your co-workers 3. Arrogance can kill 4. And finally, When you have to work long hours in the elements take adequate and frequent breaks and dont take short-cuts Please feel free to comment.... your brother in the struggle