Close call at work 15Kv fault...

[Rusty McNeil]

I think there's a couple of Electricians on here that this will make sense to.

Saturday at work we took down a 15,000 volt feeder to test 5 transformers on a daisy chain feeder and then put them back in service.

We were done and putting it back into service.

When I threw a 1200 amp, 15kv load break airswitch inside of a metal enclosed outdoor switchgear lineup one the the operator arms broke and it blew up in my face and shut down the whole lineup and knocked out part of the plant.

The fault lasted over a second before relaying took it out from a substation 1/2 a mile away.

I saw a big orange fireball thru the window in the gear and turned a 180 and dove head first and landed almost ten feet away on my stomach before I heard the big final shotgun like BOOM and it tripped out.

It blew the door (the door is the size of a front door on your home) almost completely off the hinges and sprayed hot molten slag all over the place along with the arc flash which traveled about 10 feet. It went right over my head and felt like a furnace blast.

The bitch was then we had to work two 16 hour days repairing the damage and I was the one who got to go back in and switch it back on afterwards (kinda like gettin' back on the horse right?)

I love my flashsuit, hood and gloves now that I thought was a pain in the ass before. It's a 100 calorie suit (that's the arc flash energy rating; means it's thick and heavy as fuck) it's fireproof and looks like a beekeepers outfit and is a hot MOFO especially when it's 95 degrees outside already.

Wear your PPE at work boys, it's like your helmet, you never now when your number is fixin' to get punched.


Later

Rusty

 

[clintard]

I agree,

Sometimes when in working in oil refineries or Fuel terminals, they make me wear a full body nomex suit. The thing is unbearably hot. I hate it more than anything in the world, but i still wear it. We had a guy with his face hands and feet burnt to a crisp come in at work and show us the difference in burn damage to his body where the suit was on and wasnt on. He made some kind of lazy shortcut and ended up blowing a whole plant up. It was crazy, and really really made you think.

 

[shawn kloker]

Rusty,Thank God you didn't get fried!On my last job,I only had to work on the 480 and 2300 3 phase.Our 25000 was to high for us to reach so we subbed it out.Now I only work with 480 and below.I have never worn anything throwing our air switchs,I better check into that.

I actually got really shocked a few months ago.An 8 foot high output flouresant fixture had a bad end.I lasily thought it was off and it grabbed me.Knocked me off of and 8Foot ladder,I think that is how I got off of the wire.I actually blacked out,Thought I saw my arm blown off on the way down.It hurt pretty bad,I measured 600v from the out put of the 277v ballast.Careless electricians get killed.I have 22-23 years exp. now and thats the 4th time I have been really zapped.I am back to checking and locking everything out.

 

[ViciousCycle]

Glad to hear you're all right, Rusty. Yeah, it does bring all the safety gear usage into proper focus when we almost buy the farm.

 

[Buster Hymen]

Rusty, glad to see you are OK and nothing serious happened. I'm a licensed electrician and I've had some close calls too. I've been hit with a capacitor discharge on a 27.6kV motor and by stress cones we made for the primary side of a 27.6kV transformer. I forgot to drain the cone to ground after the hi pot test! I remember when I started the trade, I was about 4 months into my apprenticeship and the journeyman I was working with blew up the outside transformer we were working in. It was as you mentioned Rusty, I saw a giant flame and a huge blast of heat that melted the shirt I was wearing and blew it off of me. Half of my hair and eyebrows melted!:stickyman:I got off lucky with first degree burns but the guy I was working wth ended up with 3rd degree burns. Shawn is right, careless electicians get killed, and the guy I was working with got careless ( we had to work in a live transformer) and almost killed us.

 

[eatatjoz]

Glad to hear that your okay.

I was working on a door opener at Perelli tire and burned the left side of my right hand to the bone with 230 3 phase. It wouldn't let go of me until I burned through three fifteen amp slow blow fuses.
When it did let go, my muscles couldn't hold onto the extension ladder anymore. I fell about ten feet and hit the steam pipes. They scorched my back and shoulder as I rolled off and fell another ten feet to the ground.
The whole thing could have been avoided If I locked the damn thing out.
Lesson noted!

 

[clintard]

note to self: Electricians all ride vmax's

 

[Lew L]

Glad that your OK. I'd have shi* myself for sure.
And I have a real bitch of a time to get the teens in my metal shop class to wear simple safety glasses and just work safely. Want to come over and tell them some stories??????
Best Ive ever done was a 15Kv neon transformer to the back of my left hand. My arm didn't feel right for a day. Now I always check with a sight prob .
Lew

 

[jgotko]

Rusty,

I guess it wasn?t your time yet. I always hear of guy?s bitch?n about wearing the PPE. I don?t give a shit how uncomfortable or hot it gets when wearing the gear, the bottom line is it has saved many-many-many asses.

I too saw the seminar with the chard guy who blew up the refinery and then like 15 years later became the refinery?s safety supervisor. (Crazy) I thought the seminar was very good others just laughed it off. I'm sure those who laughred will become a statistic one day. It wasn't a seminar to make you feel sorry for the guy, it was a seminar to open your eyes and make you think. If any think Charlie looks great, that?s because he has had hundreds of surgeries. Trust me, he's not that pretty in person. http://www.charliemorecraft.com/presentations.asp

Fortunately or unfortunately the worst thing I have been witness to was two electricians snapping in a 480vac bus plug with no PPG on. The "Dead Bus" was live and they shorted two legs together. It blew, caught both of them on fire. The guy that was tied-off to the support steel became a flaming pi?ata. The other guy was blown down and started running and rolling on the elevated screen guard trying to put himself out. For those unfamiliar it?s like rolling around on a tightened chain link fence. Not much surface area to extinguish flames.

Be Safe....Be Happy...You never know when your number is up.

 

[Rusty McNeil]

Charlie for sure makes the rounds, he did a 1/2 day seminar out here at Lyondell about 5-6 years ago.

A lot of people did think it was a little cornball but it definetly hit home for those (me) who gave a shit about living and not dying.

The guy is SINCERE !

Later,

Rusty

 

[shawn kloker]

Rusty,

I guess it wasn?t your time yet. I always hear of guy?s bitch?n about wearing the PPE. I don?t give a shit how uncomfortable or hot it gets when wearing the gear, the bottom line is it has saved many-many-many asses.

I too saw the seminar with the chard guy who blew up the refinery and then like 15 years later became the refinery?s safety supervisor. (Crazy) I thought the seminar was very good others just laughed it off. I'm sure those who laughred will become a statistic one day. It wasn't a seminar to make you feel sorry for the guy, it was a seminar to open your eyes and make you think. If any think Charlie looks great, that?s because he has had hundreds of surgeries. Trust me, he's not that pretty in person. http://www.charliemorecraft.com/presentations.asp

Fortunately or unfortunately the worst thing I have been witness to was two electricians snapping in a 480vac bus plug with no PPG on. The "Dead Bus" was live and they shorted two legs together. It blew, caught both of them on fire. The guy that was tied-off to the support steel became a flaming pi?ata. The other guy was blown down and started running and rolling on the elevated screen guard trying to put himself out. For those unfamiliar it?s like rolling around on a tightened chain link fence. Not much surface area to extinguish flames.

Be Safe....Be Happy...You never know when your number is up.

Wow,I can't read a word of this.

 

[shawn kloker]

The plant where I used to work showed us a film once that showed about 10 different guys getting electricuted.One guy was moving a house trailer down a country road.They came to a big overhead wire.So one guy gets up on top and tries to lift the wire over the trailer and gets fried right on film.Made you think.I'd like to get that again to show the guys I work with now.Its also a miracle no one has been killed here.Its really hard to believe what some of the people do with out thinking.I have even seen someone ground of the tab on a twist lock plug so they could get it to go in.It went in then was an instant short to ground ,480 3 phase.Blew up in his hands and face and he didn't even get a scratch.Blew the disconnect off of the wall.300 or 400 amp.

 

[vmx12s]

Good to hear you're OK!
I got knocked off a 8' wall once by 110v.
I have no concept of the juice you're describing.
Hopefully you still have 8 lives left. :thumbs up:

 

[Rusty McNeil]

Good to hear you're OK!
I got knocked off a 8' wall once by 110v.
I have no concept of the juice you're describing.
Hopefully you still have 8 lives left. :thumbs up:

I think I'm down to about 3 at this point but only two of the ones I've used up is related to my job.

I've been at this 22 years not counting working for my dads business back in high school and have only been hit hard once by electricity

Back in my commercial days fresh out of school doing the old "let's stand on top of the ladder and cut this 277 lighting circuit with the poorly insulated dykes routine"
Knocked me off the ladder and since I was 2/3 of the way above the suspended ceiling I brought a big portion of it down with me.

Embarrased me worse than anything.

The High Voltage group I'm in at work is really less hazardous than the regular unit guys siince they do a lot more hot work than we do.
We do reliability testing so stuffs off when we work on it. It's the incidental equipment failure during switching that's the most concern for us. That or going to work stupid...:biglaugh:

Thanks for the kind words guys, I appreciate it!unk:

 

[Dreamster66]

When I was 5 my grandpa made me pee on an electric fence!

 

[eatatjoz]

Your Grandpa didn't talk you into this, did he?:hmmm:

 

[vmaxman99]

The highest voltages I've ever worked with were in Televisions. I quickly learned many years ago NOT to wear a watch with a metal band. I was probing around in a live TV and my watch must've touched something in the high voltage circuit. The current went through my wrist, up my arm, down through my chest and grounded through the electrical outlet strip I had across the front of my bench and had one leg against. I thought I was a goner for sure. My eyes must've bugged out. I hated working on TV's from that day on.
Friend of mine got killed in his early 20's working on HVAC equipment on a hot, humid day.

 

[Dreamster66]

Your Grandpa didn't talk you into this, did he?:hmmm:

yep..... God rest his soul.