Footprint in the Steel

Handley was in transmission line work for most of his career. He has learned that regardless of whether you're in transmission, distribution or network underground work, safety rules are there for a reason. He learned the importance of safety when an accident had a lingering effect on him and his crew. A young man working at a substation outside Albany, Georgia, took at a jolt and was knocked off the steel channel on which he was standing.

Handley was working outside the substation at the time when he heard a pop and saw the 22-year-old man fall 30 ft (9 m) to the ground. The lineman had made contact with an open 46-kV switch.

“We rushed over to see how bad off he was,” Handley recalls. “There wasn't a hair left on his head, and most of his clothes had been burned off. He was trying to get up, so we restrained him until an ambulance came. The winding stem on his watch was blown off, and the clock was frozen at the time that he came in contact with the 46,000 V. In my mind, I can still see the footprint made in that 4-inch-wide steel channel where his foot made the phase to ground connection.”

Unfortunately, the doctors couldn't save him; he died the next day. “The saddest part of that story was when his little boy, maybe three or four years old, saw me and asked where his daddy was,” says Handley. “That was rough.”

It turns out the young lineman had been working on the de-energized side of a circuit before going to lunch. When he came back, instead of staying on that side, he got over on the energized side.

Each time Georgia Power has a safety incident, the employees and management talk it over and put checks and balances in place to help prevent it from happening again. In this case, Georgia Power and other utilities have implemented and enforce a comprehensive lockout/tagout best practice, to help prevent such accidents. The line worker has 100% responsibility for locking out the incoming and outgoing power source, installing grounding clamps and testing the line to ensure that it is de-energized. The lineman never assumes that another worker previously working in the same area (for example, the lineman working on the other section in the morning) has done the tagout/lockout.

Handley has come to know that when something goes wrong, it can happen so quickly “you won't have time to spit.” Following the rules and proper procedures keeps linemen safe and makes this profession so highly respected. “Line work is as dangerous a profession as there is, but the rules have kept linemen safe and out of harm's way,” Handley acknowledges.

Witnessing that tragic accident gave Handley an even greater respect for following procedures. Furthermore, he dedicated the second half of his 40-plus-year career to training transmission crews and specializing in barehand training.

Line work is Like no other Profession

Early experiences can make or break a lineman. Not all linemen have good first experiences. That was the case for Steven Crone. When he started at Dominion Power (Fairfax, Virginia, U.S.) 25 years ago, Crone was assigned to work with a lineman with whom no one else wanted to work. “When [that lineman] walked in the gate in the morning, he was miserable, and when he left in the evening, he was even more miserable,” Crone says. “His mission in life seemed to be to make everyone around him just as unhappy as he was. When he was at work, he did his job and he did not take shortcuts, but he complained about everything.”

Crone began to question whether or not he wanted to make line work his career. He worried that he might end up being down on life, too.

Fortunately, Crone's fate changed when he was sent through Lineman's Boot Camp. His foreman, a 20-year veteran, loved the life of a lineman. His mission in life was to pass on what he had learned to young journeyman apprentices. The foreman was always looking for opportunities to teach line-working skills with great attention to detail, and he always stressed the consequences of not following procedures.

“He had detailed tailboard meetings prior to every job, where he taught us how to think a job through before starting,” Crone remembers. “He never won any awards and didn't want any. His satisfaction was in helping bring up a future generation of good linemen.”

This foreman knew more about rigging than anyone at the shop. “He coached me to not fall into the same trap of doing work the hard way,” states Crone. “He was always working smarter, not harder, finding easier ways to do the work while saving your back and protecting your hands. But what I really remember about him was his passion for being a lineman, which showed by the way he communicated to fellow linemen and apprentices. He explained each step and procedure before starting a job, and each job went smoothly.”

Crone knows that supervisors and crew leaders have the most influence on new apprentices. They typically spend more time together than they do with their own families. If apprentice linemen have a coach with sloppy safety habits, poor job-planning skills or even a lack of job knowledge, these traits could easily be passed on to the new recruits.

Crone learned early on that purpose and dedication to safety are not something you teach. They are habits you model. Just being a good lineman isn't enough.

“I stayed in this business and wouldn't trade it for anything in the world because of that one foreman who invested his time and energy in me,” says Crone. “We desperately need this type of coaching in our industry today.”