Page 32 - Occupational Health & Safety, March 2019

PROTECTIVE APPAREL
Creating an Electrical Safety Culture: The Dangers of Complacency
Complacency can be dangerous when it comes to protecting the face and hands or properly protecting yourself from devastating electrical shock hazards.
BY MIKE ENRIGHT
Are your employees fully protected from elec- trical hazards, even when they’re working on “small” and/or “quick” electrical tasks? Many workers often think, “I’m wearing my arc-rated FR shirt and pants, so my PPE needs are
covered.” If your company has installed arc-rated FR daily wear clothing, your electrical safety program is on a good path.
However, it’s critical to understand that, although you’re on a good path, you still may be only halfway there. It’s also important to make sure your workforce understands that they’re still not ready to work on or near live electrical equipment until they don other im- portant PPE to protect their head and face, as well as rubber electrical gloves and leather protectors to pro- tect against shock.
The Dangers of Complacency
We’ve talked with many electrical safety profession- als over the years, and most agree that complacency can set in after programs are installed. When this happens, the step of donning additional PPE can get skipped for “small” and/or “quick” electrical tasks.
1. Partially Covered Isn’t Fully Protected
This reminds me of the first “real” car I bought af- ter college. It was a 1991 Mercury Cougar that had a convenient new, and now extinct, feature—automat- ic seat belts. You may remember these but for those born in the ’80s or later, I’ll briefly explain. When you entered the front seat of a car (driver or pas- senger), the cross-chest belt, which was mounted to the top front of the door frame near the windshield, would move via motor around the door frame until it rested behind and above your shoulder. This would draw the belt across the chest of the passenger. It was still the duty of the driver and passenger, though, to secure the lap belt.
Without the lap belt in place, a cross-chest belt by itself might provide some protection in an accident, but without the lap belt you could still get badly in- jured. I must confess, while I “usually” connected the lap belt, I avoided it on some “quick” trips, thinking, “I’m mostly protected as soon as I sit down.” In hind- sight, that was a bad decision, and this convenient “safety” feature disappeared in cars forever in just a couple of years because it didn’t effectively keep people safe.
2. A Step in the Right Direction
Clearly, wearing arc-rated FR daily wear will provide significantly more protection than non-FR clothing. In fact, arc-rated FR clothing could be the
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