A Checkup from the Neck Up

The pastor of the church I attend recently delivered a sermon that deeply resonated with me and inspired the title of this article. Around that time, I’d been ruminating on some incidents I was investigating as part of my consulting work. I’d read the accident reports and conducted employee interviews, all the while wondering why these events were given the opportunity to occur. Then I heard the pastor’s well-timed sermon and was reminded once more that what’s going on – or not going on – in a worker’s mind can significantly impact their personal safety and the safety of others.

Fallibility is an inherent part of being human. We make mistakes regardless of our years of experience performing specific tasks. We can be easily distracted from our work by any number of things, from equipment noise to conversations going on around us to the presence of new employees. Not to mention, the human brain naturally drifts from time to time on any given day, no specific distractions needed. These facts can increase safety risks, especially in our line of business.

Here’s a real-life example. An employee was installing a mechanical jumper to jump out metering equipment in a substation. He first connected the jumper to a primary on an insulating standoff and then to a neutral on the opposite side of the frame. Returning to the standoff location, the employee removed the mechanical jumper and attempted to make a connection with the primary conductor; this resulted in a 7.2-kV phase-to-ground flash. When I was notified that the mechanical jumper had failed and inquired about the circumstances, I was told the failure occurred when the jumper was moved from the standoff to the conductor. That explanation seemed incorrect to me; there was no load on the jumper when it failed. At that point, I asked the crew to closely inspect everything once the injured lineman was on his way to the hospital.

So, what events led to the lineman’s accident? That’s still somewhat nebulous. At the time he was injured, 10 other workers were with the lineman in the substation: three supervisors, a substation foreman, an engineer, three substation technicians and two other linemen. None of them realized why the flash had occurred until at least 15 minutes after they’d rescued the injured lineman. Later, during the root cause investigation, it was difficult to get answers from the workers as to why the accident had been allowed to occur. Investigators eventually concluded that given the event’s various contributing causes, it was highly likely the job had not been planned thoroughly enough.

Did I mention that this job was an anomaly – an unusual task that no one at the company had ever attempted to perform? That should have clearly indicated the need for robust job planning and increased oversight during execution of the work. Why didn’t either of those things happen? That’s the question I posed to witnesses during our interviews. What was going on with them from the neck up?

Understanding Ourselves
Given the life-threatening hazards that exist in our line of work, we must offer guidance to crews about how to clear their minds, regulate their inner chatter, and stop the “stinking thinking” that can lead to poor safety outcomes. We have the power to influence others through what we say and do. Conversations among employees can cause significant changes to work practices. We must make it our goal to ensure those conversations and changes strengthen the organizational safety culture.

Some of you know Billy Martin, an extremely intelligent and passionate safety consultant who I consider a friend and an industry comrade in arms. He incorporates the latest neuroscience research as well as his own medical expertise into his work, helping industrial athletes better understand their minds and bodies – and coaching them on how to leverage that knowledge to improve safety outcomes. I cannot underscore enough the importance of understanding human physiology and strategically applying that knowledge to mitigate risk.

I’m a simple old lineman, but after spending decades in the industry, it’s my belief that people typically make errors either because they didn’t know any better or because they willingly engaged in an incorrect, unsafe approach to their work. As safety leaders, we must regularly assess whether our employees can skillfully and safely perform their tasks. If a worker who has demonstrated such proficiency makes repeated mistakes, we must then determine if they are purposely ignoring their training and take correction action.

Designated Observers
I recently investigated an accident that involved two linemen who had graduated from a lineworker development program six months earlier. They were unloading poles together, with the truck set up at a different location than usual. At one point, they raised the truck’s boom into a 115-kV transmission line feeding a substation. The conductor was 23 feet above the ground at the point of contact, just outside the substation fence. If a knowledgeable employee had been assigned to watch the work in progress, they could have warned the linemen and prevented the incident.

Lack of a designated observer on the ground is one failure often identified during incident investigations. While observers are rarely mentioned in the OSHA standards, 29 CFR 1910.269(p)(4)(ii) states the following: “A designated employee other than the equipment operator shall observe the approach distance to exposed lines and equipment and provide timely warnings before the minimum approach distance required by paragraph (p)(4)(i) of this section is reached, unless the employer can demonstrate that the operator can accurately determine that the minimum approach distance is being maintained.” An observer must be on-site to act as a spotter and assist equipment operators as needed to ensure adherence to minimum approach distance requirements.

Naturally, not all accidents are so easily explained; just consider the one I described toward the beginning of this article. Even the most skilled employee can be injured or killed due to poor job planning, distractions, complacency or any combination of those factors. Use of a designated observer in the field, however, increases the likelihood that unsafe conditions will be identified and eliminated or mitigated before they can cause harm.

Conclusion
If our goal is to make 2025 the industry’s safest year yet, then we’re obligated to perform regular checkups from the neck up, integrate tactics into each workday that help crews stay focused on their tasks, and ensure safety rules are followed 100% of the time.

About the Author: Danny Raines, CUSP, is an author, an OSHA-authorized trainer, and a transmission and distribution safety consultant who retired from Georgia Power after 40 years of service and now operates Raines Utility Safety Solutions LLC.

Learn more from Danny Raines on the Utility Safety Podcast series. Listen now at https://utilitysafety.podbean.com!