![]() Mel: So, when I first found out he had the accident I was at work but when I answered the phone I couldn't actually understand what he was saying, he was all gibberish and, but all I got was 'I'm in a bad way, I'm being taken to hospital'. I wasn't unconscious but I sorta realised what had happened and I could just smell all my hair had burnt and my skin was all burning, and I could see all my clothes were all burnt and things and my skin was hanging off and that, I was just all black. I've clipped on the first one and then I went to clip on the second one, as soon as I touched it, it just went bffff - this white yellow flash, you know what I mean, on my face and just a really disgusting noise. All I need to do is clip on these four crocodile clips, which isn't a hard task, you know what I mean, I can see the bus bar. I'd assessed the work to be done live and I was very confident on what had to get done in response to do it live. I got up that day, a standard day, not thinking anything of it I says that I'll bounce in and do that power quality assessment I had to do. Mark: I've been an electrician for about 18 years now and I'm very confident in what I do and I still ended up in hospital. Remember, the only way to eliminate the risk of arc flash is to choose not to work live. If there are energised parts expect the unexpected and protect yourself against arc flash.Īlways follow safe work procedures and wear appropriate PPE to reduce the risks of serious burns, injury or death. On top of the injuries and lost wages, you'll also have fines to pay. You'll be off work of any sort for months. You will never regain the full use of your hands, so you may not be able to work as an electrician again. None of this would have happened if you had assessed the risks and deenergised the switchboard before you started work. If you had been wearing the correct arc-rated protective clothing, it could have prevented the arc flash from setting your clothes on fire. Your front and back were badly burnt, with second degree burns across your chest from the initial blast, as well as a patchwork of first and second degree burns where your shirt caught fire. If you had worn the correct protective gloves, you could have reduced the risks and avoided serious burns. You'll need skin grafts and months of rehabilitation. Your hands took the bulk of the heat blast, causing third degree burns. The pressure wave knocked you off your feet and into the wall behind you. The vaporised metals, smoke and burnt components formed a boiling, poisonous gas that engulfed you and went into your airways. The copper conductors vaporised and expanded up to 67,000 times their original volume, culminating in a shower of molten metal flying directly at you. And it happened 30 centimetres from your face. That's four times hotter than the surface of the Sun. A fireball that reached 20,000 degrees Celsius in a fraction of a second. The arc caused a superheated ball of flame to erupt around you. When that electrical arc fault occurred, the following things happened. An unexpected, violent electrical short circuit where current flowed between the phase conductors, neutral and Earth. So what just happened, you just experienced an arc flash. Whatever the reason, you're working on live, energised equipment and this is about to happen. There's a loose screw waiting to drop at any minute, and the insulation on the bus bar is old, worn and about to crack.īut that doesn't matter. What you don't know is in the six months since this panel was last opened, dust has built up between live parts. You aren't going to rock the boat by asking for the power to be shut down. You've been called in to do a quick job, change a circuit breaker. ![]() When you woke up this morning you thought this would be a day like any other. Hazardous manual tasks Toggle menu for Hazardous manual tasks.Heavy equipment and utility vehicles for demo activities.Heavy equipment and utility vehicles for grading and excavating tasks.Large drivable milling machines (half lane and larger).Small drivable milling machines less than half lane.Walk-behind milling machines and floor grinders.Handheld grinders for tasks other than mortar removal.Jackhammers or handheld powered chipping tools.Vehicle-mounted drilling rigs for rock and concrete.Handheld power saws for cutting fibre-cement board with a blade diameter of 200mm or less.Construction dust: respirable crystalline silica.Respirable crystalline silica in the stone benchtop industry.Reduction in workplace exposure standard for respirable crystalline silica.Respirable crystalline silica audit campaign report: Stage 3.
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