The full details on OSHA’s new electrical standard

Tags: workplace safety

"Mark, here's that story on the guy who got electrocuted," Gerry said. "You know, the one at the paper mill in town."

"Oh, yeah. What happened? Does it say?" Mark asked.

"It was the machine operator who was electrocuted," said Gerry. "It says they were doing maintenance on the machine at the time."

"That's it?" Mark inquired. "There must be more to the story."

"Well, let's see. There was a malfunctioning circuit breaker, and they were moving the wires to a second, unused breaker," Gerry said.

"Didn't they use lockout/tagout?" asked Mark in surprise.

"They didn't want to shut the machine down because it would mean too much of a start-up process," Gerry read. "The paper-coating solution would cool and clog the machine."

"So how did the machine operator get involved," Mark wanted to know.

"Apparently, the machine operator wanted to help by pulling the wires through the panel board, when he touched a live 2,000-amp busbar," Gerry said. Needless tragedy
"Well, how many OSHA regs did that violate?" Mark wanted to know.

"More than one, and it was so needless," Gerry said. "Look, right here on Keller Online is the new OSHA electrical standard. If they had followed that, this guy might still be alive."

"Not to mention the LOTO violation," Mark said.