Yesterday morning. Checking out a breaker that kept tripping on a convection oven. I was removing the cover on this old Westinghouse panel. There were 6 blank breaker fill-ins in this panel and these were supposed to be screwed in place. Well they weren't. When I pulled the panel, they started to drop. I couldn't hold the panel cover and grab them at the same time; and I couldn't move the panel cover because it was holding up the falling steel plates. I stood there frozen staring at those 6 pieces of steel - in contact with the cover I was holding and about to touch the main lugs at the panel bottom. I stood there for probably a minute sweating from the fear trying to think of a solution. I clicked my radio and called for help. A guy who works for me just happend to be in the buildng and came to my rescue. When he got aobut 20 feet form me, they dropped.
I must have let go of the door because I'm still here. I don't remeber exactly what happened in that second but it was loud and bright. Sounded like a rifle went off two times one right after the other. Later that afternoon the guy who was with me said his ears were still ringing.
One main lug pitted pretty deep, the panel in my hands was black and had several scars. 15 kitchen staff in another room, around the corner saw the flash rflected on the walls and came running in thinking we were both dead.
I blew out a 125KVA transformer and tripped the breaker feeding the transformer.
We started calling around for a transformer immediately and had everything back online by 7:00pm but I left the room several times yesterday to calm myself down. I never actually cried but the enormity of how close I had came did bring a few tears to my eyes a couple of times.
I would have locked out the breaker but I considered removing the panel cover to be relatively safe. And I needed the panel hot to take a amperage reading.
Take nothing for granted. I'll be holding a safety meeting on Monday and we're going to change the way we do a few things. I got shocked pretty bad a few years ago and I do take electricity very seriously. But obviously not serously enough.
Don't get overly comfortable. Don't start to think you won't get hurt. Take what you do very, very seriously.
[This message has been edited by maintenanceguy (edited 02-06-2005).]
