I was curious if anyone else had seen this article on a worker who was killed after essentially using proper LOTO proceedures on a faulty disconnect. I won't get into too many details as someone with more computer savy than me can probably link to the article.
Dave
Dave:
i did read about it with LOTO prodcure but some disconnetion switch can actally go bad and my simple rule is after lock out and tag out i use the voltage tester and i mean i use two diffrent type of voltage tester to make sure it is 100% dead voltage in the area where i will be doing work.
most important part is use common sense regarding what voltage the system is running low, med , high voltage catory area so as i stress it again run the tester twice to make sure it is dead.
but some case i know some peoples they are in the hurry or careless or not thinking for some reason it can be very dangerous with it like dont have time to verify the voltage is dead etc and on med and high voltage stuff the other issuse is proper grounding it [ i will leave that subject somewhere else. i will keep in the point here]
and some company don't have any safety traning program and i wonder why some company want to cut corner to keep the cost down without taking someone life there.
myself i do belive in safety training it do pay off to keep aware with sisuation around you.
Merci, Marc
LOTO needs to be renamed to Lock out Tag out try and test....testing should be done with a device that has been proved prior to each test. and try means to try to start the device that has been disconnected. What if you lock out the wrong isolation device. It could be mislabeled, or wires may have been disconnected and reconnected for some reason and when the reconnect is made it is miss wired. Stranger things have happpened. when I was working in a plant there was some peice of temp equipment that they needed to power form a 480 MCC. it was decided that they would disconnect a couple of motors, remove the starter buckets and replace them with size 2 diisconnect. When the buckets were replaced the doors were swapped.... because those motors were seldom used it wasn't discovered for more than a year.
Corrected spelling errors.
[This message has been edited by Ray97502 (edited 10-05-2004).]
Sure Ray,
There is an infinite number of things that can go wrong when you are de-energising/disconnecting Electrical equipment.
It's rather wierd, how this skill in itself is one of the most basic parts of our Trade, yet so many people seem to get it mucked up and get hurt in the process.
I would tend to think it's either poor learning of the concept or complacency towards the procedures required.