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PSA: Saw a diver in Lafayette last Tuesday pull a 6 inch trash pump without lockout and I'm still thinking about it
Three years back I was on a bank stabilization job outside Lafayette and we had a diver named Ray who refused to wear a hard hat on deck because he said it made his neck hot, which tells you the kind of crew it was. Last Tuesday I'm running a small job on a dock piling inspection and I watch a younger guy go down to free a 6 inch trash pump that had sucked up a tarp, and he never once checked the breaker or asked anybody to lock the panel. The pump was rated at 460 volts and he had his hands on the discharge housing within 5 minutes of splashing. I said something after he surfaced and he shrugged and told me the panel guy was standing right there, like that counts as a lockout. Half the guys I've worked with out here say the permit system is just paperwork and the real safety is knowing the system, and the other half won't touch a pump box unless the plug is in their pocket. I've seen both sides of that argument go bad, but I keep landing on the side that says no diver should ever put hands on anything that can be re-energized by one guy walking back from lunch. So where do you all draw the line, is a tag enough if the panel is in sight, or does the breaker have to be physically locked every single time no matter how short the job?
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lunaf678d ago
Yikes, that diver is lucky he's still around to shrug at you. Lock it out every time, no exceptions, a tag means nothing when the panel guy wanders off and somebody flips a breaker to reset a tripped circuit. Takes ten seconds to throw your own lock on and pocket the key, way less time than pulling a body out of the water.
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