Introduction to

Electrical Safety

NFPA 70E-19951 defines an Electrical

Hazard as
a dangerous condition, such that, inadvertent or
unintentional contact, or equipment failure, can result
in shock, arc flashburn, thermal burn, or blast.

Electrical safety is defined in NFPA

70E-1995 as
recognizing hazards associated with the use of
electrical energy and taking precautions so that hazards
do not cause injury or death.

NFPA 70E

NFPA 70E requirements for

safe work practices to
protect personnel by
reducing exposure to major
electrical hazards. Originally
developed at OSHA's
request.

Electrical Hazard and Electrical Safety

understand the nature and consequences of electrical

hazards and the reasons for practicing electrical
safety.

Four main phases of protection from

electrical hazards.
First, electrical installations should be designed and
constructed to be safe by complying with the criteria of
recognized and generally accepted good engineering
practices.

PURPOSE OF PEC 1.0.1.1(a)

Practical safeguarding of persons and
property from hazards arising from the use of
electricity

Four main phases of protection from

electrical hazards.
Second, the integrity of electrical equipment shall be
maintained with particular emphasis on enclosures,
insulation, operating mechanisms, grounding, and
circuit protective devices.

NEMA Enclosures

Overhead Insulators

Wire Insulation

Conduits

EMT
RMC
IMC
FMC
LFMC
ENT
PVC

Four main phases of protection from

electrical hazards.
Third, unless there are serious overriding
circumstances, electrical equipment shall be placed in
an electrically safe work condition before personnel
work on or near it.
Safe practices shall be used to establish an electrically
safe work condition.

Four main phases of protection from

electrical hazards.
Fourth, safe work practices
and adequate protective
equipment, tools, and test
equipment shall be
understood and used when
it is not feasible to establish
an electrically safe work
condition, or when deenergizing would create a
greater hazard of another
kind.

 These electrical safety give guidance as to what needs

to be done to avoid creating dangerous conditions in
the first place, how to recognize them when they do
exist, and how to take appropriate precautions to
avoid having anyone injured or killed.

Acronyms and abbreviations

CPR cardiopulmonary resuscitation

NEC National Electrical Code
NEMA National Equipment Manufacturers
Association
NESC National Electrical Safety Code
NFPA National Fire Protection Association
OSHA Occupational Safety and Health Administration
UL Underwriters Laboratories

Exposure to electrical hazards

 Electrical hazard indicates that hazards can result

from poor physical condition of equipment or
facilities, sometimes simply called unsafe
conditions.
It also indicates that injuries can result from the
careless or inadvertent actions of people, sometimes
simply called unsafe acts.

 Taking precautions means that safety considerations

regarding such conditions and actions should be
given to all aspects of electrical work, starting from
the initial design concept, through installation and
start-up, and continuing on into the post-operational
maintenance activities.

There are essentially three recognized kinds of injury

that may result while working on or
near electrical hazards:
a) Electrical shock;
b) Burns from contact, arcs, or flashes;
c) Impact from blasts.

Electrical shock

The electrical hazard of which most people are aware,

and the one that most electrical safety standards
have been built around, is the electrical shock hazard.
Electrical shock affects human beings in the following
ways:

 Currents as small as a few milliamperes through the

heart can cause disruption of the natural electrical
signals that the heart uses to perform its normal
functions.
Voltage levels as low as 50 V with low skin resistance
and current flowing through the chest area can cause
fibrillation, which can result in death.

 Electrical shock can damage human tissue where the

current enters and exits the body. Within the body,
the current can also damage internal body parts in its
path.
Degree of damage

amount of current,
the type of contact,
the duration of contact, and
the path of the current through the body

 Electrical shock causes the muscles to contract. Due

to muscle contraction, the person experiencing the
shock may not be able to release the conductor
causing the shock (known as the let-go threshold).
This grasping leads to longer exposure.

 Several standards offer guidance regarding safe

approach distances in order to minimize the
possibility of shock from exposed electrical
conductors of different voltage levels.
The most recent, and probably the most
authoritative, guidance is presented in NFPA 70E1995.

 In fibrillation, the victim may not recover consciousness.

On the other hand, the victim may be conscious, deny
needing help, walk a few feet, and then collapse. Death
may occur within a few minutes, or may take hours.
Detection of the fibrillation condition requires medical skill.
The application of closed-chest massage, a treatment in
which blood is circulated mechanically in a fibrillation
victim, can result in the death of a subject whose heart is
not in fibrillation.

Burns from contact, arcs, or flashes

Almost everyone is aware that electrical shock can be

a hazard to life.
Many people, however, have experienced minor
shocks with no dire consequences. This tends to make
people somewhat complacent around electricity.

 Serious electrical injuries

involve burns
Electrical burns include
not only burns from
contact, but also
radiation burns from the
fierce fire of electric arcs.
The electric arc between
metals is, next to the
laser, the hottest thing on
earth.

 Serious or fatal burns can

occur at distances of more
than 304 cm (10 ft) from the
source of a flash.
In addition to burns from the
flash itself, clothing is often
ignited. Fatal burns can result
because the clothing cannot be
removed or extinguished
quickly enough to prevent
serious burns over much of the
body.

 Electrical arcing is the term that is applied to the

passage of substantial electrical currents through
what had previously been air. It is initiated by
flashover or the introduction of some conductive
material.
Arcing involves high temperatures of up to, or
beyond, 20 000 K (35 000 F) at the arc terminals. No
materials on earth can withstand these temperatures;
all materials are not only melted, but vaporized.

The arc as a heat source

The electric arc is widely recognized as a very highlevel source of heat. Common uses are arc welding,
electric arc furnaces, and even electric cauterizing of
wounds to seal against infection while deeper parts
are healing.

Impact from blasts

The rapid expansion of air caused by a fault current

has been recognized for some time as one of the
electrical hazards. What was not recognized
previously was the fact that this blast and its effects
could be calculated, and precautions against its
effects could be taken.

Pressures developed by arc blasts

People are exposed to two dangers from electrical

arcs: burns and blasts.
The blast can cause falls and other injuries, as well as
damage nearby structures.

Case Histories

Case no. 1 - shock

A mechanic, while working
on some equipment in the
rear of a power-type circuit
breaker auxiliary metering
compartment, accidentally
came in contact with
adjacent energized
transformer terminals. He
apparently had not checked
for other energized
components in the vicinity in
which he was working. He
required medical treatment
for shock.

Case no. 2 - Shock

A construction electrician was assigned to a job installing
wiring for lighting fixtures in a 208 Y/120 V system. The job
was already partially completed. The electrician was told
by the foreman that everything was dead. The home
run was already installed, and those wires were
protruding from a junction box. The electrician was on a
ladder and began to remove the insulation from the home
run wires using wire skinners with one hand. His other
hand was holding the wires, but was also in contact with
the box. He was not wearing gloves, and received a severe
shock causing him to fall from the ladder. Fortunately, he
received only minor bruises from the fall. He later said, I
should have checked myself to see that it was really dead.

Case no. 3 - Severe shock

A field engineer was using portable radiography
equipment to inspect the quality of medium voltage cable
terminations. A construction electrician was assisting him.
The radiography equipment consisted of a cathode ray
tube in a metallic casing (called an X-ray head) and a
control unit. A control cable interconnected these units.
The engineer was on top of a stepladder, leaning against
the switchgear enclosure, grasping the handles of the Xray head, and adjusting its position. The electrician
proceeded to plug the control unit into a 120 V outlet and
connect the control cable. Suddenly, the engineer received
a severe shock and fell off of the ladder.

Case no. 3 - Severe shock (cont.)

It was later determined that
the plug-in connection
between the control cable and
the control unit was poorly
polarized. The electrician had
forced the connection
together in the wrong
orientation, putting 120 V on
the casing of the X-ray head.
The engineer was taken to the
medical department at the site,
and was observed for the
remainder of the day. He said
his grasp was locked onto the
handles momentarily until his
weight broke him loose during
his fall. He complained of
muscular problems for several
days afterward.

Case no. 4 - shock and burn

An electrician was part of a crew that was operating a

13 kV switch in a new electric power system. One
switch blade did not close properly. As other crew
members packed up their tools and prepared to
return to the shop to discuss the problem with
supervision, they heard a noise.

Case no. 4 - shock and burn (cont.)

They turned around to see the switch door open, and

the electrician surrounded by smoke and flames.
While trying to read a part number, the electrician
had accidentally made contact with an energized part
of the switch, and a flash had occurred. A coworker
pulled the man from the switch and revived him using
cardiopulmonary resuscitation. Nine months later,
after having some fingers and toes amputated, the
electrician was still receiving medical treatment as a
result of the accident.

Case no. 5 - shock and burn

A construction electrician had been running wiring all
day long for several new heating and air conditioning
units in the space above a suspended ceiling. The
electrical feeder that supplied the new installation
was a 480 Y/277 V system, but it had been verified as
de-energized earlier in the day; however, no lockout
had been installed. The electrician, at one point late in
the day, began to prepare the main feeder for
connection. He was working on a ladder and started
to remove the insulation from one of the wires. He
did not have gloves on. He let out a yell as he became
hung up on the wires.

Case no. 5 - shock and burn (cont.)

Apparently, sometime during the day, someone had

turned on the feeder breaker. A carpenter, working right
beside the electrician, recognized that the electrician was
frozen to the wires due to muscle contraction. The
carpenter used a piece of lumber to knock the electrician
off the ladder, breaking him free of the wire. The
electrician fell onto the floor, rolled, and banged against a
wall. He was taken to the hospital and kept for two days
for treatment and observation, having received a severe
shock, second degree burns to both hands, and facial cuts
from the fall.

Case no. 6 flash, blast, and burns

A contract electrician had finished drying out a 480 V

bus duct. While working on a ladder, reinserting the
plug-in units onto the bus, he encountered difficulty
getting one of the units to make up properly. He
banged on the plug-in unit and was met with a flash
and blast that severely burned him and knocked him
off the ladder. He was not wearing any protective
clothing.

Case no. 7 - fatal shock

An electrician was installing a 277 V lighting fixture in an
industrial plant. Turning the power off was inconvenient, as it
involved winding his way around and through some vessels and
pipes, and going up two flights of stairs to the lighting panel.
Apparently thinking that there was not much danger in this
minor job, he didnt bother to turn the power off. Working in
an existing junction box, he made up two of the connections,
and was trying to remove an existing wire nut to install the third
wire. He was having difficulty removing the nut, so he used a
lug crimping tool to try to pull and twist the wire nut off. He
gripped the tool too hard and it cut through the outer shell of
the wire nut, making contact with the energized wire inside. He
was electrocuted.