Saturday, September 16, 2023
Electricity is the second most powerful force that mankind has learned to harness. It only takes 0.005 amperes of current to kill you. Even lower voltages like 120 volts are deadly. Higher voltages are that much more deadly. We as electricians, linemen, apprentices and laborers working in the electrical field are the most vulnerable to electrical shock, arc blast, third degree burns, internal organ damage, and flash blindness. The bottom line is that not only can electricity kill us, but it will also be a horrifying, painful death. None of us can afford to make mistakes or to even lose our fear of electricity. It is a thing to be feared. Once a person loses their fear of electricity, they will take chances, and make bad decisions and not take time to think through what they are doing, stay focused, take their time to do things right and that will almost certainly lead to a horrible, painful and most likely fatal mistake.
E Light's policies are designed to make all of us stop and think about what we are doing, take the time to think through and plan out work, have other people not involved in the work review our plans and approve them before we do the work and do things which develop habits that make us think about what we are doing and remind us to think about safety. An example of some of these is the requirement to wear our tool belts, wearing your tool belt, eliminates the habit of laying your tools on a work surface and therefore helps eliminate the chance of leaving a tool in a piece of equipment which can lead to an arc blast. The pre-task card, JHA briefing and challenging process is designed to make us think about safety every day and throughout the day. Each time you challenge someone, you are thinking about your safety and that is the real purpose of the challenging requirement. And Energized Work permit is designed to make us think through the process of what we are about to do and to give other people not involved in the work a chance to ask questions such as "Do we really need to do this work energized?", have we thought of all the hazards and do we have an adequate plan to mitigate the hazards. All of these things and more are designed to keep us focused, thinking about safety and ensuring that we all go home every day to our loved ones.
Sometimes we may feel that the requirements are overdone, more than we need, takes too much time, and so on. I understand those feelings, I have worked in the industry for over 40 years and truly do understand. I have had the same thoughts, I have lost focus and done things that I am not proud of today and I have been lucky, and I am alive to tell you the story today. Here is the bottom line, I am not willing to put you at risk, put the company at risk, and put the livelihoods of hundreds of employees at risk based on hoping they get lucky. Are you? Some people spend time and effort trying to find loopholes around the requirements, ways to reduce the PPE requirements, or the steps of the process. Sometimes for efficiency, sometimes out of pride, sometimes out of lack of understanding. Electricity is so dangerous; we cannot afford to think about ways to reduce the safety measures. What we all need to do is change our thought process, let’s stop thinking about how to reduce the safety measures and put our efforts into thinking about what we are doing and EVERYTHING we need to do to be completely safe from the hazards of electricity and protect ourselves and everyone that works with us.
E Light Electric Services, Inc. requires safe work procedures, and all of our work is done in accordance with the minimum requirements of the current accepted version National Electrical Code and the Standard for Electrical Safety and the Workplace. Energized work may only be performed after an energized work permit has been submitted, reviewed and approved by the Vice President of Operations and the Director of Education and Loss Prevention. Please remember that until a circuit has been deenergized, locked out and verified that it is de-energized with listed meter using a live-dead-live test, the work is considered energized, and all aspects of energized work apply.
All employees are required to stop work anytime they recognize an unsafe work condition and report this condition to their supervisors for mitigation. All employees are required to conduct themselves professionally. Non-qualified personnel which are not licensed as professional electricians or hold Certified Electrical Safety Compliance Professional, Certified Electrical Safety Technician or Certified Electrical Safety Worker must follow the directions and instructions of those that are licensed to ensure mitigation of electrical safety hazards. Employees are prohibited from resetting tripped overcurrent devices until a qualified person has determine the cause of the tripped overcurrent device. NO OVERCURRENT DEVICE CAN BE RESET UNTIL THE CAUSE OF THE TRIP IS DETERMINED. No work can be done without a Job Hazard Analysis, a JHA briefing where the hazards from the JHA are written onto the employee's pre-task card and the employees have signed the JHA.
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