Construction Incident

Job safety is always on everyone’s mind on a construction site and keeping those injury free work days climbing in the books usually makes for a great Safety Program.

It’s a shame when someone gets hurt on a work site but sometimes it seems they just can’t be helped. One such incident happened recently that I just had to blog about.

Electricians work with high voltage lines and take extra care to be safe at all times but as one found out he might just have been too careful. One of his coworker’s passed by and observed an electrician shaking violently while working on a circuit.

Construction workers know that if someone is being electrocuted you should never grab them or touch them as the current will pass to that person also. The trick is to either kill the power by tripping a circuit breaker or getting something non-conductive to move the person off the power source.

Acting quickly is important in saving a life and keeping the amount of damage to a minimum. The worker who saw the violent jerking motions knew it was a long distance to the breaker box so acting on instinct and speed he found a wooden 2”x4” and smacked the victim hard to move him off the electrical line.

Down went the victim as many other workers quickly gathered around to assist in the rescue.

The next thing that happened shocked everyone . . .

The “victim” gets up mad as can be and starts screaming at his “hero rescuer”. The ranting goes on for several minutes before things started to sort out what had happened.

The “victim” it seems was happily working on his wiring while listening to his iPod when the “rescuer” walked by seeing his coworker “in trouble” shaking violently. What became clear after the incident was the “victim” was listening to music and apparently was ‘dancing’ to the sounds in his earphones. Not the best dancer in the world it seems as the ‘rescuer’ was pounded in the forearm and dropped to the ground injuring is arm, shoulder, and breaking several ribs.

Everyone was on the floor laughing, we thought we might need first aid for all of the hurting bellies and fixed smiles once the rest of the story played out.

Keep your work site safe and accident free . . . if you suck at dancing please don’t do it at work. For safety’s sake keep those iPod turned off.

You never know when you will need help and someone will not risk helping you knowing what an idiot you are for not learning to dance in high school.

Ice