ôRealö Arc Flash Statistics 2

[Senselessticker]

Hey folks,

I’ve done my googling and searched the other threads in eng-tips, but still haven’t been able to come up with some creditable resources that differentiate the causes of injury that fall under the umbrella of “arc flash” injuries.

I’m looking for information (statistics) that explains arc flash injury as result of human error vs. arc flash injury when not subject to human error.

In short: Are people getting hurt because he/she is performing work on equipment while failing to follow applicable testing/installation procedures (and applying common sense of course), or are people getting hurt due to arc flashes that occur independent of human error assuming applicable testing, installation, and LO/TO procedures have been followed?

I would love to hear feedback from any journeymen/electricians that are required to wear a space suit from time to time and have been involved with any injuries/death as result of this buzz word called “arc flash”. All the recent hype about PPE just doesn’t add up to me…

OR – Am I completely ignorant about the risk involved and need some education?

Any enlightenment and/or education is welcome and appreciated.


Sense

 

[alehman]

Are you thinking equipment failure vs. human error? I would be willing to bet the vast majority injuries are induced by human errors. This gets back to the responsibility question.

Now the more difficult question is what is considered an error? Is an injury due to an inadvertant error (e.g. dropping a tool in energized equipment) while wearing proper PPE an error?

 

[BJC]

The "creditable resources" are why there is a NFPE 70E. Do a little googling and you can find plenty of statistics. If your going to use statistics to research some point or the other first define what your looking for. What ever that is your initial post doesn't define it well.
Arc flash without human error would be gear failure. People don't wear PPE not because they expect an accident anymore than people wear seatbelts because they expect to be in a wreck.
"OR – Am I completely ignorant about the risk involved and need some education." I think so. Your attitude is show through. If you want to fight the requirement, I will not help. NFPE 70E is like a lot of rules, there's dead people behind them.

 

[Senselessticker]

I will attempt to be more clear:

What specific criterion merits an electrical incident to be reported as an injury/death due to arc flash vs. an incident being reported due to electric shock? And of each different type of injury (or perhaps combination of both), how many are results of someone working on (or around) equipment that was thought to be, or should have been, de-energized?

 

[ScottyUK]

A phone call to your national safety body should point you in the right direction. The UK's HSE inspectors are fairly approachable and will try to help. They will rarely direct a specific course of action in order to meet legislation even when asked a direct question, but in most other ways are as helpful as they can be. You might struggle to get through to the people you need to speak to though.

You will almost certainly find that the injuries sustained by most arc-flash victims are listed as burns. I've not seen 'arc-flash' listed as a specific cause of death over here, but Europe is lagging behind North America a little in assessing the risk.

The burns received due to arc-flash are different to those from passage of electrical current through the body: arc flash burns tend to be akin to radiation burns affecting unprotected skin over a large area, while electrical burns are frequently deep tissue injuries along the current path, possibly with distinct entry or exit wounds. Low voltage shock may simply result in cardiac arrest, which I believe leaves its own chemical 'signature' within the body.

----------------------------------

Sometimes I only open my mouth to swap feet...

 

[DanDel]

Injuries from Arc flash and from electric shock are two different things. That's why there is separate PPE for arc flash ('space suit') and shock (gloves) listed for each location in an arc flash study.
You should be able to differentiate between the two in an online search to determine comparative statistics.

 

[dpc]

http://www.bls.gov/iif/

The Bureau of Labor Statistics in the US tracks all types of industrial injuries and death. They have a Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries (CFOI) that is considered the definitive census of workplace accidents in the the US.

I'm sure a call or e-mail to the BLS could get you more specific data.

Electrocution is pretty well differentiated from burns, but arc-flash burns have not always been classified separately from other types of burn injuries.

Best data available indicates about 2000 serious electrical arc-flash burn cases in the US each year. These are burn injuries serious enough to require treatment in a burn center.

Arc-flash burn injuries are definitely real. If you look in the back of IEEE-1584 you can read numerous real-life case histories.

 

[Senselessticker]

Great link dpc! Thanks!

 

[Senselessticker]

So I contacted the Deptartment of Labor in my state about arc flash incident statistics/data/etc...

The Dept. of Labor in my state had no information concerning fatal or non-fatal injuries associated with arc flash.

Here is a quote:

...As far as nationally, coding will not include the mention of arc flash, and will therefore be lumped into either electrocutions or burns based on the manner of death via death certificates, autopsy reports, etc...

I will now contact that national Dept. of Labor and report my findings here. My hunch is that they will also be unable to produce statistics concerning arc flash. I've done lots of googling and found that PPE equipment vendors who advertise with stats are EXTREMELY inconsistant and seemingly unrealistic concerning the number of injuries from arc flash.

Anyway, as I tried to make clear in my original post. Something is just fishy (and VERY costly) about all the attention that arc flash is getting these days. I'm not trying to deny the fact that arc flash injuries occur, I'm just trying to determine why its getting so much attention... Someone wagging the dog maybe?

 

[dpc]

I'd suggest contacting some members of the IEEE IAS Safety Workshop committee. There have been a number of presentations at the Workshops over the years regarding the frequency and severity of electrical burn accidents.

Dr. Mary Calpelli-Schellpfeffer is a physician who has been involved in arc flash safety and the IAS safety workshop for many years. I'm sure a web search will turn up some links.

It's true that DuPont and their engineers have been heavily involved in arc-flash safety and that they are a major supplier of material used in arc-resistant PPE. But DuPont also had some serious arc-flash accidents, so that may be another reason for their involvement.

The Safety Workshop is in February - I'd encourage you to attend and express your concerns.

http://www.ewh.ieee.org/cmte/ias-esw/about.htm

 

[Senselessticker]

Thanks dpc for you helpful posts. As I have time, I'm going to investigate deeper.

I suppose my initial assesment of the energy going into arc flash evaluation and PPE requirements can be described figuratively as:

It seems there is too much energy being focused on "how to determine when to wear a life vest", and too little energy being focused on "how to properly navigate the boat". Futhermore, most of the folks determining when/where/how to wear the life vest, rarely (if ever) spend time on the boat.

 

[dpc]

I think healthy skepticism is a good thing. If you approach it with an open mind, I believe you'll convince yourself that arc-flash hazards are real and that appropriate PPE can reduce the risk. The last data I saw indicated that about 300 electricians are killed on the job each year in the US from all causes. This compares with maybe 20,000 deaths from traffic accidents? So there are legitimate questions related to risk/benefit ratio.

There is certainly a lot of hype surrounding the issue, especially from those who have a product or service to sell.

But as far as the safety requirements that OSHA expects the employer to meet - it's a done deal. Might as well get used to it. You can add it to the list of other hazards that no one used to worry about but now we worry about a lot:

Confined space entry
Hard hats
Safety Glasses
Hearing Protection
Respirators
GFCI
Smoke Detectors
Seat Belts, Air Bags, backup beepers, etc.

 

[ruggedscot]

surely one life saved is worth all the effort ?

Witness an arc flash or an equipment failure be in the wrong place at the wrong time....

Yes there are profit chasers out there thinking on the next new thing to chase and implimentbut you know is it not such a bad thing when it can save lives ?

Rugged

 

[Senselessticker]

I am certainly in favor of mandated electrical safety procedures/standards/etc... that result, IN A VERY PRACTICAL WAY, in the preservation of human life and decreased risk of exposure to electrical injuries.

My concern (as stated above) is that perhaps the recent arc flash analysis and associated PPE requirement determination may not be the best way to minimize the risk of electrical exposure (be it arc flash or electric shock). Arc flash studies require a great deal of very detailed subjective information in order to be accurate (and are we even sure the studies ARE accurate?).

You say: "surely one life saved is worth all the effort?".

I say: With the resources being equal, why not save two? This is why I am trying to find stats with detailed information concerning why/how arc flash injuries are occuring. Metaphorically: are we treating the symptoms or curing the disease?

I would certainly rather cure the disease...

 

[lile001]

The disease is energized work, and the painful cure is to turn the stuff off. Most facilities think they they can run electric power 24/7/365, and that isn't true.

I wish I had good references for this stuff, I put together some of these statistics for an arc flash presentation but don't have backup references.

There is approximately a death a day due to arc flash injuries (300 a year)

Arc flash injuries have been declining slightly since the late 1990's, because of increased awareness of safety precautions.

There are about a dozen arc flash injuries a day. These might range from minor burns to total disability.

Of the people killed by electricity every year, 60% are electricians, 60% of those are arc flash incidents.

99% of electricians killed are men

More deaths occur in younger electricians, the rate drops slowly from the 20's through the 50's.

Think about the toll on a family, with the breadwinner in the prime of life.

I know personally of three arc flash incidents. In the first case two electricians were killed and another injured, in the second case two electricians were killed, at the same facility, and in the third case the electrician was burned and spent a couple of months away from work. This ain't no hype, it is real.

Once again I apologize for not having references for these stats, but they were gleaned from a persistent Google search.