Author -

EYES BURNED BY FLASH!!!!!!!!!!

After working all day, the majority of the crew was called back in about 7:30 due to a large power outage. Come mid-night all the power was restored except a local Church of God. I arrived at the scene and discovered that two cut-outs were open that feeds a 3-phase padmount transformer. I checked everything that I could look at and decided that lightning had gotten on the underground dip and caused the two fuses to blow. Boy was I ever wrong. My groundman had refused the cut-outs and I closed them back in. One stayed and I proceeded to close the other when upon closing the other a small flash and a loud boom followed. Decided to look everything again and discovered a whole in the elbow well plug. Called my supervisor and foreman, they got together and decided to change out the well plug and try to pick it up again. My foreman instructed to lower the fuse sizes in both cut-outs which I gladly did. Lowered from from a 30ks to a 5ks for troubleshooting only. The first cut-out stayed and when I closed the second a larger much brighter arc flash and much louder boom occurred. I had thought about not wearing my safety glasses due to them fogging up all night. Luckily, I decided to put them on. After everything had cleared up and I could see a little bit I noticed that the barrel of the cut-out and blown in two leaving only the top and bottom of the barrel. After looking at my safety glasses after about 30 minutes when I could see a lot clearer I discovered a few nicks in the lenses that were not there before. JUST GOES TO SHOW TO WEAR ALL PROTECTIVE EQUIPMENT NEVER KNOW WHEN SOMETHING MINOR COULD TURN INTO A BAD DISASTER.

Ron from Georgia lineman for fifteen years and love every minute of it. !!!!!PLEASE WEAR ALL PPE!!!! BE SAFE AND TAKE CARE OF YOURSELVES YOU FAMILY NEEDS YOU AT HOME TONIGHT.