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ARC FLASH AWARENESS ( 5/11/06 )

“Something was probably telling me ‘Get out of that room’ and I 

got, I finally get out of the room and he follows me out. And I 

can remember patting, he was patting my head, as he told me 

later, he was still putting the fire out, that my hair was still 

burning.” 

“The skin on my face was basically burned off. Lost parts of my 

ear, ears.....There was actually metal impaled in my teeth.” 

“ When I looked back and saw I had no pants on the back of 

legs, and literally, the skin was hanging off my arms and legs, I 

just....I just knew something horrific had happened. “ 

( narrator ) 

Electricity is an essential part of our lives. It lights our homes 

and powers our industries. We rely on electricity everyday. 

Electricians and other workers who install and maintain 

electrical power systems and equipment make this all possible. 

These workers are at risk for electrical injury on a daily basis. 

- Jon Beley

 

- Andy Tomko

- Don Stewart 

 - Night shot, city of 

Pittsburgh from overlook 

- Electricians working 
 

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In industries like construction and mining for example, electrical 

incidents are a leading cause of fatal injuries on the job. Shock 

is one of the more obvious risks in electrical work, but a hazard 

that sometimes goes unrecognized is the danger from an arc 

flash. 

An arc flash can occur while working on an energized circuit, or 

from electrical equipment failure. When an arc flash occurs, 

workers can suffer serious burns and other injuries. Such 

injuries may require months of painful recovery, result in 

permanent disability, or even be fatal. 

You are about to hear the personal stories of three experienced 

electricians who were injured in two separate arc flash incidents. 

They will recount the sudden and destructive power of an arc 

flash, and discuss how these events affected their lives. 

“My story begins in 1995, in the spring of 1995 in May. We were 

to show up at a building to perform preventative maintenance on 

some switch gear. We arrived at the job site about 7:00 that 

morning and we got together. The two other gentlemen and 

myself got together to discuss what tasks we had to 

perform....... One of the tasks to be performed was to change a 

disconnect-out in one of the panels. I was standing in front of 

one of the compartments and said, ‘I will change-out this 

disconnect’. Jon was to my right and Scott was to my left. Jon 

was going to proceed tightening the load wires of the 

disconnects of the panel that he was in.........” 

 - WS- Construction site 

 - Underground coal 

miner flips switch at 

power center 

 - Staged arc flash 

(Square-D supplied clip) 

Title over video : 

“ARC FLASH AWARENESS” 

- On-camera talent 

 - INCIDENT # 1 

 - Don Stewart 
 

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“ ........ When I got to one of the switches which was still 

energized on the line side, when I shut that disconnect door, 

that is when the incident started. It was so fast, it was 

unbelievable. The room was as bright as it could be right now. 

Horrific noises, humming, banging, and just molten metal flying 

everywhere. I sort of remember that, I can remember it. I can 

remember it being right in front of me, I believe I got blown back. 

There was a wall not too far away, so there wasn't too much 

room where I could go back, maybe 3 ft. I hit a wall and I went 

straight down. Luckily one of the workers was walking out the 

door for something. I’m not even sure what he was doing, 

getting another extension cord or whatever. He was lucky 

enough just to scamper out of the room when this happened, so 

he did not get burned at all. My working partner, however, he 

did eventually get burned. But the incident happened right in 

front of me, and I went down. He was not in front of the actual 

arc, but he did turn around to come and lift me up. As he was 

lifting me up, this gear was still arcing and melting down. This is 

when he received burns on his back side, the back of his legs, 

and the back of his arms, as he was trying to pick me up. ” 

“.........I can remember I was bending down to pick the 

disconnect and I could see his motion of him closing the door. 

When he closed the door, it was just a horrific explosion, the ball 

of fire and the noise. The noise was so deafening. It was like 

somebody was in there with shotguns just shooting at you.....” 

“ .....As it turns out, as a result of the incident, I received burns 

over 58% of my body. The worst burns were from my fingertips 

up to my elbows. While I was under in the hospital, they had did 

 - Jon Beley 

 - Don Stewart 

 - Jon Beley 
 

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skin grafts to my arms, through my fingers. Luckily, I had 

enough skin left, although it was close, from what I heard, to do 

my arms. They took skin from my mid-section. They would 

have like to did skin grafts to my legs, but I didn’t have enough 

skin, and it was borderline, and they thought maybe there were 

a couple areas that probably could have used them on my legs. 

Pretty much as I laid there in the hospital and finally started 

realizing what happened. I mean, there was not too much of 

my body that was not burned. Some places were better than 

others. I can remember being, at the time, I had garment on my 

arms, sort of maybe the first time I woke up and was conscience 

and just couldn’t believe the total coverage of the injuries. My 

legs, both legs, both arms, my back, there is a patch on my back 

that got burnt pretty good, my face and my ears. My ears were 

pretty bad, I like to tell everyone they looked like if you leave a 

marshmallow in a campfire too long that is sort of what my ears 

looked like. They would actually, when I would lie in bed in the 

hospital, my ears would touch the pillow, they would almost stick 

to the pillow. I remember not being able to move my head 

because both of my ears were stuck to the pillow......” 

“ .....I am not here to scare you, not here to talk you out of being 

an electrician--I am going to retire as an electrician. My son has 

started the program. I constantly talk to him about what’s going 

on, what can happen. I can't talk to every electrician out there 

what can happen, but maybe this message here will get to a lot 

of you......” 

- Don Stewart 
 

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“.....I would say the biggest way it has changed me, it is in my 

attitude. It’s trying to expect the unexpected. It’s being ready 

for anything, because anything may happen. With what we do, 

we’re more at risk of something like that happening, than maybe 

anybody else that may be walking down the street. Or maybe 

whatever you do in your profession, we may be more suspect to 

those freakish kinds of accidents that happen...... 

........In terms of arcing accidents, it’s kind of funny, when I was 

in the hospital recovering, when I was well enough to speak and 

to see people. Every electrician that I talked to, had their own 

little arc story that they lived through. A lot of them were 

harmless, you know, injury free. However, they were arcing 

incidents and well could have been, you know, cause of an 

injury. It is amazing how many, a very high percentage. It 

would probably be hard for us to talk to an electrician that never 

was exposed to an arc that he had caused or was 

around........Now we electricians should know this and be ready 

for it. It is going to happen, what are you going to be like when it 

happens ? What are you going to have on your body when it 

happens, what are you going to have over your eyes when it 

happens ? You may not stop them from happening, but we can 

stop them from hurting us. “ 

 

 - Jon Beley 
 

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 “ June 19, 1997, I was requested to go to Brownsville 

Elementary School. Met my partner at a bus stop, the park and 

ride, and we went in one vehicle. We went in a company 

vehicle out to the job site. It took us about an hour to get 

there......” 

“.......We got to the job site, what we want to do is to check and 

see if the hardware would let us adapt new buckets to old switch 

gear. The switch gear was in a revamped boiler room, clean 

atmosphere, but the boilers have been removed. Upon 

inspection, when we removed the side panels on the switch 

gear, I could see that there was an old film across the buses 

and a pretty good indication that all the paint on the outside 

didn't help what was on the inside. This switch gear there was 

quite a few switches that were defective. The intent here was to 

order new buckets to be installed. The original manufacturer 

was no longer in business. This was a retrofit and it was just a 

matter to see if the connected hardware was going to line up....”

“......I decided I was going to see if I could safety disconnect the 

bucket. See if we could get hardware to match up. My partner 

went out to the vehicle to get something. In the mean time, I 

was able to reach in work around this switch very comfortably. I 

was able to switch electrically and mechanically and was 

attempting to remove it from the switch gear. When the 

accident occurred, there was arc over there was a flash, the 

brightest light I had ever seen in my life. The noise was 

 - INCIDENT # 2 

 - Andy Tomko 
 

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deafening and I probably blacked out for, I had no idea how 

long, seconds. It could not have been more than a minute. 

Regaining my composure, I looked at myself and I saw that I 

had been burned pretty severely. I had skin hanging from my 

ears, from my arms, and my chest. I was able to walk out of the 

building, met my partner who was coming in. He was just 

aghast, couldn't believe because it was just a matter of seconds, 

basically. There was hardly any time from the last time I saw 

him, until I saw him again, and he was just looking at me like. 

He was probably more upset than I was. It was probably 

because I was in shock. We decided that he should drive me 

over to the hospital rather than waiting for emergency help. 

Because the hospital was so close, we did that, went to 

Brownsville Hospital. The decision was made to send me down 

to West Penn Hospital Burn Unit. Which, interestingly enough, I 

was instrumental in wiring. Two things I never got to enjoy was 

helicopter ride because I was out, and the burn unit. Never 

really got to see the inside of it because I was more or less in a 

coma the whole time. The coma was induced. I was out for five 

weeks. The skin on my face was basically burned off and lost 

parts of my ear, ears. I am probably jumping ahead here, but 

there was actually metal impaled in my teeth, you know like 

spears. My arms were burnt from where my sleeves, I had a 

short sleeve shirt on, so from under the short sleeves, my arms 

were burnt. My neck was burnt. I had a hard hat on, had safety 

glasses on, essentially that was about as far as it went.....” 

“.....Power should have been shut off, plain and simple. I think 

that I made a very costly error by not insisting that the power be 

turned off. As a result, I came very close to dying. I had acute 

respiratory distress from the smoke that I inhaled. That was 

probably the biggest thing they had to work with, or on.....” 
 

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“.....I would have to say that my family did not deserve that 

mistake that I made.....Again, I will just reiterate, you could 

actually see this light and explosion that takes place and the 

devastation after the fact. If you could see that, you could 

witness that, you would never work on anything that was hot....” 

“.....Part of what happened to me was because of my own ego. 

Because I have done it so many times that, like I said, you get 

the feeling you are infallible. You find out that you’re just skin 

and bones.....” 

“.....I was never complacent, I mean, I was always very careful, 

always very careful. My fault, it was my fault, because in 

retrospect, I made that decision to work on it hot.....” 

“.....Your life has to be just as important as everyone else. 

Someone's asking you to work on that hot. What inconvenience 

could that be, being in the hospital for nine months, was it worth 

it.....” 

“......When it comes to working on live circuits, live equipment, 

you really do have a choice. You don’t have to work on 

energized equipment. It can be shut off. You’re just too 

important, think of your family, think of you family.” 
 

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( Lanny Floyd – mgt. comments ) 

It's important to recognize that much that can be done to 

prevent arch flash events are beyond the control of the 

individual who may be at risk of injury. Today we have the tools 

and technology to analyze the workplace, to identify the arch 

flash hazards. We can use those tools and knowledge to better 

engineer facilities from the very beginning. To better engineer 

facilities if we are retrofitting or renovating a facility so that we 

reduce arch flash hazards either in magnitude or in frequency. 

It is important that the commitment to manage this hazard be 

visible at the very top of an organization. Management must 

demonstrate the commitment to provide a safe work 

environment and apply to that commitment to the unique 

hazards of electric arch flash. Engineers that do the design of 

the facility, of the processes, of work practices can bring added 

value to preventing these events from happening. Partnerships 

with equipment suppliers that can bring innovative technology to 

both from a, say an industrial switch gear, a commercial switch 

gear as well as the tools and protective clothing that people use 

on a daily basis. 

 - Management 

Spokesman (on-camera) 

 - Mgt. / Engineers doing 

“design...” 

 - Partnership with 

suppliers 
 

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The safety professionals have a very important role in coaching 

the organization, management as well as workers, in keeping 

the workplace safe. I think the more that the safety professional 

understand about arch flash they will be able to apply their 

expertise in hazard control measures, again to the unique 

hazard of electric arch flash. Trainers and educators whether 

they are in-house or people that you may contract with to 

provide those services to you. We need to make sure that they 

are knowledgeable and up-to-speed with current state-of-the-art 

knowledge on arch flash hazards as well as electric shock so 

that we are training and teaching people that best way we know 

how. I think lastly, the worker, the person at risk, having had the 

training and education provided, having had the tools, and 

protective clothing provided, need to really make a commitment 

to use that knowledge, to use those tools and to use that 

protective equipment everyday. To watch out for their coworkers make sure they are doing that too. 

 - Safety Professionals 

 - IBEW Trainer in 

classroom 

 - Electrician working ( 

wearing protective 

clothing ) 

- Management 

Spokesman (on-camera) 
 

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( narrator ) 

Your safety depends on all electrical work being carefully 

planned and carried out. The safest way to work on an 

electrical circuit is to de-energize, lock-out, and then verify that 

the circuit is de-energized. It is important to follow 

recommended safe work practices and use proper tools and 

equipment in addition to appropriate PPE. The decision to work 

safely is yours, and the choices you make can save your life. 

 - On-camera talent 

 - ( DISCLAIMER ) 

This video provides only a 

brief overview of arc flash 

hazards. The viewer is 

advised to obtain formal 

training on electrical safety, 

including arc flash hazards. 

Electrical work should 

always conform to 

applicable workplace safety 

regulations, such as those 

in CFR29 (OSHA) and 

CFR30 (MSHA). In 

addition, NFPA 70E, 

Standard for Electrical 

Safety in the Workplace, 

provides detailed 

recommendations for 

electrical safety.