Posted By Paul T9 An interesting event happened today that seemed small at the time but developed. I act as the company health and safety rep on a small department. The contract cleaner approached me and told me that when she had unplugged the vacuum cleaner a spark had jumped from the socket to the plug. She did not receive a shock, apart from it making her jump, so was not injured in any way. I asked our maintenance man to arrange for an electrician to have a look at it stressing that it is urgent. The electrician arrived and checked out the offending socket and found that there was a problem with it, he didn’t stop there and checked some of the other sockets to be sure and found they also had a fault showing. To cut a long story short it has resulted in all the sockets being shut off and requiring some major work to rectify the fault (before anyone is cynical this is a large multi-site with a contract for the maintenance). I had had a frustrating morning on a minor health and safety issue with one of my line managers but this incident has raised my spirits. The way the cleaner took the time to mention it, then the action of our man in charge of raising maintenance issues. The electrician going the extra distance to be sure and taking the time to go back to his office to check the regulations and taking the necessary action to resolve this. My line managers for listening to my concerns (a first there) and for acting on the advice and recommendations of the electrician. A positive result and no one hurt it, now that is a good day!

Posted By Crim I looked at this earlier and could not think of what to say. Now I've had my bedtime cocoa (believe that if you will), all I can say is what a good result! Well done!

Posted By ARUN Hello everyone! I am Arun Joshi,Dy.Mgr(Safety)working with fertilizer plant of India. I have passed NEBOSH IGC & have 15 yrs exp in H&S. I like this forum. Best Wishes. Regards, Arun Joshi INDIA

Posted By AMelrose Having been electrocuted TWICE by switching off / on a plug at a wall, great to hear everyone in your organisation jumped into action. FYI First time at University - went to switch on a computer and next thing I remember is lying on my back on the floor watching the smoke rise from the plug...other student on course raised the alarm. Second time at a client's site - giving training on M Handling. Room freezing so they had provided a heater. Plugged in OK but at end of night, went to switch off and unplug. Blue spark and shooting pain up arm - not a good sensation. So, now if there's thunder and lightening I stay indoors / in my car as third time unlucky and all that!!

Posted By PL Good to hear that the system worked and that everyone did their bit. That's how a day should go!

Posted By Jim Walker Many many years ago I was a medical equipment service engineer. One day I was called out to a machine that was "playing up, but working". I had a bit of a play & soon realised there was an unusual neutral fault. I asked my contact to get the resident electrician over. He wasn't too chuffed at being disturbed and when I explained what I thought was wrong he said it was impossible. Anyway my client & I persuaded him in the end to open up a distribution board just to check. We opened up the board & every neutral wire was burnt to a frazzle! The whole wing of the major London Teaching hospital was closed down for 3 months. When I got back to my office the (enraged) boss wanted to know what the hell I'd been up to! As you can imagine a half a story had got back & he thought I'd caused the fault. I ended the year with a mega bonus (£1000) - I was on a basic of £2,500 at the time. Both me & my contact were personally thanked by the big cheese at the hospital. Even the electrician got a pat on the back.

Posted By Graham Bullough Full marks to everybody involved in the scenario described by Paul T9. Some tangible reward for the cleaner wouldn't go amiss, especially in view of the low pay which cleaners generally receive. Though the scenario and positive outcome have been aired on this forum, can appropriate publicity be given elsewhere? This would surely help to encourage others to report known or suspected electrical faults. There have been a number of well publicised cases in the past where people knew of such faults but little or nothing was done to identify and remedy them. As a result the faults led to electrocutions, i.e. deaths, plus various associated adverse outcomes including prosecution. Paul - Please could you describe the nature of the fault affecting the various sockets and, if possible, how it arose? Was it because of faulty design and/or poor components/assembly or due to unsatisfactory installation or maintenance? This information might enable other organisations to check/be vigilant for similar problems with their sockets. If there has been a shortcoming in design or manufacture, it's best not to mention the make unless the manufacturer has already publicised the shortcoming. Those of us reading this thread who understand the term "electrocution" to mean a fatal electric shock will be intrigued by AMelrose's mention of having been electrocuted twice! The meaning of this word has been discussed in previous threads. It seems that more and more people say they have been electrocuted after experiencing non-fatal electric shocks. As a result some dictionaries now reflect such (mis)usage of the word by defining it as covering both fatal and also non-fatal electric shocks, when surely what is needed is a new word for shocks which don't have a fatal outcome. Any suggestions?

Posted By John Richards Why did maintenance not pick-up the fault years ago ?

Posted By AMelrose I stand corrected as I'm still here to tell the tale..though it felt like I had died the first time as don't remember hitting the floor (just remember touching the switch then lying on my back and both times REALLY HURT!!) Paul T9 - does your workplace have a newsletter or something, perhaps you could have an article on it (with a photograph if the cleaner is happy to pose). Would highlight the issue and why risk assessments - even if it's just a visual check, are important before using electrical equipment / tools etc....

Posted By Graham Bullough In the 1980s I came close to being electrocuted or at least having a similar experience to AMelrose when I was re-wiring my first house with its original 1940s vintage wiring with deteriorating rubber insulation and only a few round-pin power sockets. Before starting to replace the immersion heater (radial) circuit and its control switch I pulled its fuse at the fuseboard and then removed the cover for the switch. Something in my head prompted me to check that the exposed terminals inside were electrically dead - so I got a fright when my test device glowed to indicate that the supply terminal was still live. I subsequently checked to find that whoever had originally written the labels at the fuseboard had somehow confused the fuse for the immersion heater circuit with that for the cooker circuit. Therefore, as well as re-labelling the two circuits, I checked all the other circuits and found that they were correctly labelled. Part of my project included replacing the fuseboard with a modern one containing MCBs instead of fuses and a RCD in place of an isolator switch. That experience during my first foray into DIY electrical projects was a valuable lesson. Ever since, I have been suspicious about other people's labellings of circuits and therefore check them out when starting projects. Despite doing that, whenever I subsequently isolate a circuit in order to carry out work on it I still prefer to satisfy myself that it is electrically dead before touching its conductors.