Inspection Detail

Inspection: 300326964 - Mount Vernon Mills, Inc.

Inspection Information - Office: Mobile Area Office

Investigation Summary

An electrical crew was working in a substation. There were two substations side by side--one was for the main power for the mill it supplied, and the other, in which the crew was working, was for the plant's air conditioning system. The crew was changing the capacitor for the substation under the supervision of the plant engineer, who had made the decision to use plant employees rather than a contractor to do the work. The engineer wrote down the procedure to be followed, including the energy sources that would be isolated and the sequence in which to isolate them. However, the engineer had not identified an uninsulated 13.8-kilovolt conductor that came from the main substation and passed through the second substation. As part of this job, an electrician, who had no experience working in a substation, started to remove a fuseholder for the capacitor. The fuseholder was screwed to a metal bar that was welded to the substation steel structure. When the employee began to unscrew the fuseholder, the weld on the metal bar broke, causing the employee to lose his balance and fall backward. He contacted the energized conductor and a lightning arrestor that was behind him. He was electrocuted.

Keywords: LIGHTNING ARRESTER, ELECTRICAL, ELECTRICIAN, ELECTROCUTED, LOCKOUT, E PTD, SUBSTATION, ELEC UTILITY WORK, FALL, UNTRAINED