Keep your head in the game. · Lineman Bull$hit

Keep your head in the game.

August 1979 West Central Florida. The crew I was working with had been tasked to install GOAB switches in several feeders to make ready for a substation clearance in mid September. This station had to be de-energized to roll the transmission phases into the station. This station would not tie hot to anything else we had on the system. The site we would work that day (Friday) was a little different than the switches we had been installing. We had two energized dead ends that had one span of wire that needed to be installed. We would make up jumpers on one end of the span and install fuse switches with solid blades on the other end. The night of the station outage someone could come to this location and close the solid blades with an extendo stick.

This job came up mid morning as a filler job to finish the day with. It was added into our daily job brief to install another GOAB. The GOAB switch was not ready so we backfilled the remainder of the day with this job.

My world was filled with distractions that day. It was August in Florida. Wife was 8.5 months pregnant with our first born and the night before she was in false labor. It was pay day and we had to pick up our check that day and get them to the bank before it closed. Direct Deposit was not heard of back then. It was Friday, a beer or five with the boys that afternoon. And did I mention it was hot.

We got to that jobsite about 11:30. Lead said lets go ahead and eat lunch and then we can do this job.

I had worked with this crew almost 2 years. I considered everyone family. Some were like distant cousins but none the less family. We were a 6 man Feeder construction and maintenance crew. And rarely did our shirt tails hit us in the ass. Had tons of experience to draw from with two of the lineman representing almost 50 years of experience. I was the one of the least experienced guys on the crew being a second year apprentice and 3 year hand.

After lunch was done the lead tells us his plan. Pull out three phases of 4/0 aluminum. Don't need a neutral in this span. We will have a bucket with 2 men to frame the dead end and soft side the wire.

We will have another one man bucket set up on the sag end that will frame the pole and sag up the conductor after it is soft sided. After the conductor is sagged in the the soft side crew will make up hard jumpers that will energize this span. The sag end will pull the tails into the open switches energizing the top of the switches. He will install tails into the bottom of the switches and tap up the other circuit with hot line clamps. We will phase across to make sure phasing is correct and then hang the solid blades and leave them open.

I proceeded to help get the bucket set up on the sag end. We had the wire trailer with us. I started pulling the wire the one span to the soft side bucket. The ground man there was making up the dead end shoes and giving those tails to the guys in the bucket. The would take the tails up and pin them in the bells. While i was pulling the wire out The sag end hand was framing his pole. After getting all the wire laid out the soft side end had two of the phases dead ended. And was headed back up to pin the last phase. Using a hand line I started pulling up the phases to be sagged. I would pull the slack out put in the grip and using the hand line pull it up to the hand in the bucket. He would put it on his hoist and then begin sagging the wire. I had the first two phases up and was pulling the slack out of the third phase when someone hit me in the face with a baseball bat. They had bumped a jumper on the phase that I was holding prepared to put it in the grip. The next thing I remembered I was waking up in the ambulance. I remember my lineman saying I knew you were dead I heard you scream.

Did we have distractions that day? Yes we did. Our typical pre-job meeting did not happen on this job site because we felt like we had some serious time constraints on our hands. Lets just getter done. If you have never seen a hand cry i can tell you first hand it happens. My pole buddy was in the soft side bucket and he let the tail of the jumper get away from him. He cried. My lineman was sagging the wire by eye. He never said put your rubber gloves on. Knowing that I was probably distracted. Without the pre-job this crew was famous for we turned into a bunch accident prone ass bites and I paid a price for it. Still got the scars to remind me of that day. My son was born two weeks later on a Friday, I came back to work 3 days after he was born with a limp. He is now a power plant operator. And for me God had a plan that day to allow me the opportunity to share this story about something so routine can turn into something so bad.

You have to be focused in everything you do so you protect your brothers and family. You need to look at yourself in the mirror each morning and tell yourself I can be my brothers keeper.

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