{"id":33396,"date":"2019-05-01T07:00:14","date_gmt":"2019-05-01T14:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.oreca.org\/?p=33396"},"modified":"2019-05-09T12:35:50","modified_gmt":"2019-05-09T19:35:50","slug":"an-initiative-to-work-safely","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.oreca.org\/an-initiative-to-work-safely\/","title":{"rendered":"An Initiative to Work Safely"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Linemen
Wells Rural Electric Co. Foreman Jacob Manning, right, tailgates with Apprentice Lineman Joey Payne, left, and Journeyman Lineman Chris Duffy prior to changing out an insulator on an energized line.<\/strong>
Photos by Layla Welsh<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By Pam Blair<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Commitment
The Nevada co-op has pledged to maintain a culture of safety through the National Rural Electric Cooperative\u2019s Commitment to Zero Contacts initiative.<\/strong>
Photos by Layla Welsh<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Nearly two decades ago, Northfork Electric Cooperative\u2019s Heath Martin survived a 7,200-volt shock on the job. He admits the accident was his fault.<\/p>\n

Heath and his co-worker, Chad Crompton, had worked all night, then were called to a routine outage.<\/p>\n

Heath says he was thinking about an upcoming fishing trip with his buddies.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was in a hurry, but it was no reason to take a shortcut,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Heath suffered severe burns to his hands and face, resulting in skin grafts, multiple surgeries and physical therapy.<\/p>\n

\u201cGrounding that line down would have taken me maybe five minutes at the most,\u201d says Heath, who now is safety director at the Oklahoma co-op. \u201cI just made a bad decision that day.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although the overall injury rate has fallen dramatically, serious injuries and fatalities among electric cooperative lineworkers are happening with alarming regularity, says Bud Branham, director of safety for the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association.<\/p>\n

\u201cResearch shows you can have the best injury rates in the world, but you can still fall victim to a catastrophic incident,\u201d Bud says. \u201cWe must all remain focused.\u201d<\/p>\n

A nationwide survey of 51,000 co-op employees conducted annually between 2006 and 2015 found an average of more than 23 serious injuries and fatalities, which is defined as any claim greater than $100,000\u2014\u201ca life-altering event for an employee,\u201d Bud says.<\/p>\n

\"Serious
Serious Injuries and Fatalities for Co-op Lineworkers. In the past decade, the overall injury rate has fallen among co-op lineworkers, but high rates of serious injuries and fatalities persist.<\/strong>
Source: Federated Rural Electric Insurance Exchange and statewide associations<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cThe No. 1 cause of claims\u201440 percent\u2014are electrical contacts that result from failure to use appropriate personal protective equipment or insulated covers, or to test and ground facilities\u2014the lifesaving rules everyone has been taught,\u201d Bud says. \u201cIt\u2019s like blocking and tackling in football. There are always pressures to take shortcuts. As we become more skilled, we become less risk-aware. The simpler the task, the less our brain focuses on it. With fast-brain thinking, we skip steps.\u201d<\/p>\n

Especially during outage restoration work, the tendency is to \u201churry up and get it done,\u201d Bud says, noting the thought pattern can be, \u201cI\u2019ll just do it this one time. It won\u2019t hurt me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sometimes it doesn\u2019t. Other times it does. Either way, it\u2019s a trend safety leaders across the country want to stop.<\/p>\n

In April 2018, NRECA, Federated Rural Electric Insurance Exchange and electric co-op statewide safety leaders introduced the voluntary Commitment to Zero Contacts initiative.<\/p>\n

It is designed to provide CEOs, senior leaders and field personnel with resources to help eliminate serious injuries and fatalities due to electrical contact and enhance co-op safety programs.<\/p>\n

The campaign provides a toolkit of resources, including field guides, videos, logos and written commitment forms.<\/p>\n

\"PowerlineOne aspect of the campaign is a downloadable job-planning app\u2014Stop and Focus Everyday\u2014for use on mobile devices. It requires step-by-step acknowledgement of the life-saving rules of the job, with a goal of building and reinforcing safe work habits.<\/p>\n

Use of the app encourages crew leaders to stop, focus and review crucial risk factors that could lead to employee contacts. The app also provides efficient job planning processes for energized work, outage restoration and daily tasks.<\/p>\n

Job-briefing data is automatically submitted to Federated\u2019s website with a time and date stamp. It is accessible in real-time and searchable by date, time, submitting employee, job type or job number so it can be used for training.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe must do job planning on all jobs,\u201d Bud says. \u201cThe worst accidents tend to happen during routine jobs where risk awareness declines and complacency is more likely. They know they need to do certain things, but do they?<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we can get crews to increase job briefings to 100 percent of the time, we will decrease accidents. If you follow these rules every single time, you will go home with your arms, legs and life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Creating a strong culture of safety helps mitigate the risk at all levels.<\/p>\n

Wells Rural Electric Co. in northeastern Nevada has signed onto the Commitment to Zero Contacts initiative and uses the S.A.F.E. app.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been very dedicated at WREC to making sure our job briefings are religiously filled out,\u201d says Foreman Jacob Manning. \u201cThe one thing that is etched into our heads from day one is that electricity will kill you. Being safe can be a matter of life and death.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jacob says it is important to him to make sure all of his guys are safe, that they understand the job at hand and the hazards associated with every job.<\/p>\n

\u201cRegardless of how high or low on the totem pole a guy might be, every person always has a say in what we are doing and the ability to ask any questions about the job or any hazards they might not understand,\u201d Jacob says. \u201cIt\u2019s important every single person involved understands exactly what we\u2019re doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the end of the day, the priority must be safety and doing everything possible to make sure their linemen go home to their families, says WREC CEO Clay Fitch.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur guys do a great job in terms of the quality of their work, attention to their training and observing safety on the job,\u201d Clay says. \u201cWe owe it to them and to their families waiting at home to give them the tools they need to build a culture of safety. That\u2019s really the benefit of Commitment to Zero Contacts and the S.A.F.E. app. It\u2019s about creating a constant awareness of safety.\u201d<\/p>\n

A Positive Spin on Safety<\/h2>\n

Commitment to Zero Contacts suggests co-ops avoid a \u201cbad cop\u201d mentality and instead focus on a system wide approach that helps them:<\/p>\n

    \n
  • Clarify and define life-saving rules<\/li>\n
  • Verify use of life-saving rules<\/li>\n
  • Create effective job planning on all jobs, including the routine<\/li>\n
  • Form a structured safety management process<\/li>\n
  • Seek employee involvement<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    By Pam Blair Nearly two decades ago, Northfork Electric Cooperative\u2019s Heath Martin survived a 7,200-volt shock on the job. He admits the accident was his fault. Heath and his co-worker, Chad Crompton, had worked all night, then were called to a routine outage. Heath says he was thinking about an upcoming fishing trip with his […]\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":33397,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[232],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oreca.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33396"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oreca.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oreca.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oreca.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oreca.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33396"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.oreca.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33396\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oreca.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33397"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oreca.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oreca.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oreca.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}