Incident Prevention Magazine

Brandon Wylie grew up with line work in his blood from his father and music in his soul from his grandfather, so it was just a matter of time before the two parts collided. And when you cross line work with a passion for music, you end up with a song that can light up a room and help bring recognition to an entire industry. Wylie wrote the song “Highline Cowboy” to express his love of the electric utility industry, and he can be found working on his music when he’s not teaching safety to lineworkers in his role as a certified safety and training specialist for Electric Cities of Georgia.

Would you go to a fine restaurant that only served bland food? Of course you wouldn’t. One of the main reasons we enjoy going to restaurants is because the food is seasoned and tasty. The same applies to safety presentations. People enjoy them if they are pleasing to the senses. That’s why spicing them up so they aren’t bland will not only make your presentations more enjoyable, but will help stimulate your employees to get involved. I’ve seen it happen hundreds of times.

Safety champions Louisville Gas and Electric and Kentucky Utilities companies have created a culture of safety excellence with consistently low injury rates and hundreds of national and international awards to their employees’ credit. A key factor in LG&E and KU’s success has been a top-led, employee-driven approach to safety, which includes a concentrated effort to identify hazards and issues and proactively address them before they become injuries. Safety professionals know that even the most exemplary performance can turn upside down in a split second due to any number of factors. They may include the failure to follow procedures or recognize hazards, distractions, attitude, complacency and even a false security about past successes. LG&E and KU have been very effective in managing those situations as well as one that can easily be overlooked – change.

Social persuasion is the final skill set needed to understand the science of emotional intelligence. The concept behind emotional intelligence is that everyone can learn its five skill sets. Some people have a greater need for them than others, but the point is to start the process of better understanding others by studying the disciplines and applying them to each of your relationships. Studies in the last three to five years validate the notion that your understanding of emotions can improve your ability to bridge relational gaps and ultimately improve personal and professional performance.

Since Tacoma Power’s creation in the 1890s, its employees have worked on or around energized conductors and have been exposed to the hazards of electrical arcs and flames. For most of that time, electrical workers wore natural fiber clothing to reduce the risk of injury if involved in a situation that could result in an arc flash. Injuries from burning clothing can lead to permanent disabilities and death.

OSHA, like MSHA, publishes regulations for the employer to follow to promote safety in the workplace. The methodology of the regulations is to establish performance goals. Regulations do not establish procedures according to OSHA, even though they may occasionally require certain actions. One example is requiring barricades and equipotential mats at grounded equipment to protect workers from voltage gradients.

OSHA 29 CFR 1910.269(l), “Working on or near exposed energized parts,” requires employees to adhere to very specific rules concerning the exposure of unprotected body parts to energized conductors and equipment. I am amazed at the different interpretations of this one paragraph. I have thought about what work practices were being considered by the advisory panel that made the suggestions about how the standard should read when it was being written in the 1980s. The standard is very clear that two qualified employees are required to be on the job site when work is being performed that exposes an employee to minimum approach distances (MAD) on equipment or conductors with nominal system voltage of 600 volts or greater. Why? Is it due to the type of task being performed, or is the second person there for emergency rescue or fist aid? Depending on the task, there may be a legitimate safety reason to require the second employee. Does that second person need to be in the air in a two-person bucket or second bucket to assist, or should they be on the ground observing and available to assist in rescue? The answer depends on whom you ask. I sometimes wonder what the original committee intended.