IT’S SHOCKING
RANDOM THOUGHTS
It seems so long ago that I was standing in my platoon at probationary school; I was “Q-15.” 1 remember a conversation I had with Q-14. He mentioned in a hushed tone, “If there are two things I can’t stand, they’re electricity and height.” I answered, “You’d better get over one of those fears or you’ll have plenty of trouble when you get out of here!”
1 am sure he conquered the height problem; however, I secretly shared his concern about electricity. I’ve learned a few lessons over the years that I’d like to share. You probably have discussed what to do when a wire is down on a car with passengers inside. But what about the following?
I .adders and electricity. There artmany problems here — problems that can cause serious injury and death to members and others. But like anything in this business, if you know how an incident is caused, maybe you can prevent it.
Ladders are conductive—a direct short to ground. Electricity wants to get to ground a lot more than it wants to travel along the wire it’s in or on. Two firefighters in Bronx, New York, were killed while taking up an extension ladder when it contacted overhead wires. Two firefighters in Texas were electrocuted while drilling “throwing ladders” on their own property after they hit their own electrical service; the senior firefighter was killed and the junior severely injured. While teaching in Rhode Island, I met a firefighter who had been electrocuted on an aerial ladder while ascending through tree limbs to reach a cat stuck in a tree: A nearby transformer arced and “jumped” into his hand, down his body, and out his leg to the aerial and to ground through the hydraulic outrigger.
What are the lessons here? First, ladders are conductive. Some people in the fire service purchase only wooden ladders. “Wcxxl is not conductive,” they say. However, there is metal bracing, and the only wcxxlen ladder that is nonconductive is a dry one. How many dry ladders do you have on your fireground?
Second, attitude plays a part. Very rarely do firefighters’ ladders come in contact with electrical supply while they are being carried, raised, and placed on a fireground full of bustle and excitement. We seem to be able to perform miraculous tricks to get ladders safely in place then. The two firefighters in the Bronx were killed while taking up; the one in Texas during training; and the one in RhcxJe Island during a “no-pressure” operation. The attitude that “the fire is over, nothing can happen now” takes over, overriding thinking and caution. The members taking up usually are not the ones who placed the ladder and do not know the gymnastic feats required to place the ladder.
Positioning the truck. Wires on the ground are almost always a nightmare for the chauffeur—first in spotting the truck and then placing die aerial tips to the primary objective. Here are some guidelines.
- Electrical wire services usually are on one side of the street or the other (except in my city), so usually your problems are cut in half.
- If the operation is on the wire side of the street, the closer you get to the utility poles with the turntable, the less chance of problems (Work out the angles on the blackboard. See?)
- If you get die turntable under the wires, you have almost no problem. A firefighter asked, “What if I’m on the ladder and the wire bums through and hits the ladder behind me?” The answer: If an electrical wire burns through while you are on a ladder positioned between . the wire and the building, we are going to different fires, or you will never know that the wire burned—wires melt at higher temperatures than firefighters do!
- If you can get your truck positioned* between the fire building and the electrical wires, you have no problem! *
Operations on aerial devices, ladders, and buckets always will cause the firefighter to have funnel vision. The turntable person must serve as the eyes and ears of his partner (for many other reasons,* t). Buckets operating on the face of the, building will not always remember the locations of the wires they passed over, under, or through to get there. In close operations, contact or near-contact is almost always assured without an aware ⅜ firefighter at the turntable accounting for the safety of the aerial team.
“Cut that wire!” Do you answer “What,” “Why,” or “How” to that order? 1 you don’t, you’re bound for trouble. First,, how many of you have recently tested lineman’s gloves and leather covers? Second, how many have electrical wire cutters? No, not bolt cutters! How many of you have both? If you don’t, don’t even think of cutting the wire. The only time you should cut a wire is if
- there is human life in severe jeopardyfa wire is wrapped around a human) AND
- there is no other alernative AND
- both sides of the wire at the cutting area are anchored with some heavy ob jects—wood, a spare tire, or another non-, conductive material.
Remember, you can move the wirei from a person or other object with a single rope tossed over and under the wire. Yoir also can move the person-on-wire with the same rope or a l()-ft or larger wxlen/fiberglass htk after insulating yourself from ground with dry wood or rubber. Pull the wires toward you —don’t’ push the wires. W hy?
More next month.
