It’s 10 minutes to quitting time, you’re working on a particular task that you have done hundreds of times but your mind is on your commute home, your family obligations ahead of you, or a class you have to attend that evening.  Then the unpredictable happens; you miss a step coming down the ladder; you assume the circuit is dead; you cut your hand on the metal box; you get metal shavings in your eyes while drilling a fixture.  You have become a statistic in the over 3.5 million non-fatal work-related injuries and illnesses in the United States.  These statistics were assessed due to the dramatic increase of worker’s comp, and liabilities insurance. 

Of those 3.5 million injuries and illnesses statistics assessed in 2008; 416,000 involved sprains, strains or tears; 223,000 involved back injuries; 234,000 were due to falls. Accidents can happen to even the most experienced of workers if you neglect to adopt safe related work practices or take your mind off your surroundings. 

How do you and your employees avoid becoming part of these statistics? By educating yourself and adopting safety related work practices, you can help decrease the chances of accidents and injuries. Below is a program taken from NFPA 70E 2009 Edition*.  Next month’s article will cover methods of safety in the work place.

Annex E   Electrical Safety Program

This annex is not part of the requirements of this NFPA document but is included for informational purposes only.

E.1  Typical Electrical Safety Program Principles.  Electrical safety program principles include, but are not limited to, the following:

1. Inspect/evaluate the electrical equipment
2. Maintain the electrical equipment’s insulation and enclosure integrity
3. Plan every job and document first-time procedures
4. Deenergize, if possible (see 120.1)
5. Anticipate unexpected events.
6. Identify and minimize the hazard
7. Protect the employee from shock, burn, blast, and other hazards due to the working environment.
8. Use the right tools for the job.
9. Assess people’s abilities.
10. Audit the principles.

E.2  Typical Electrical Safety Program Controls. Electrical safety program controls and include, but are not limited to the following:

1. Every electrical conductor of circuit part is considered energized until proven otherwise.
2. No bare-hand contact is to be made with exposed energized electrical conductors or circuit part above 50 volts to ground, unless the “bare-hand method is properly used. 
3. Deenergizing an electrical conductor or circuit part and making it safe to work on is in itself a potentially hazardous task.
4. Employer develops programs, including training, and employees apply them.
5. Use procedures as “tools” to identify the hazards and develop plans to eliminate/control the hazards.
6. Train employees to qualify them for working in an environment influenced by the presence of electrical energy.
7. Identify/categorize tasks to be performed on or near exposed energized electrical conductors and circuit parts. 
8. Use a logical approach to determine potential hazard of task.
9. Identify and use precautions appropriate to the working environment.

E.3 Typical Electrical Safety Program Procedures. Electrical safety program procedures can include, but are not limited to, the following:

1. Purpose of task
2. Qualifications and number of employees to be involved.
3. Hazardous nature and extent of task.
4. Limits of approach
5. Safe work practices to be utilized
6. Personal protective equipment involved
7. Insulating materials and tools involved.
8. Special precautionary techniques
9. Electrical diagrams
10. Equipment details
11. Sketches/pictures of unique features
12. Reference data.