The TCU Student Paper is reporting that Employees injured in on-campus electrical accident it is expected that the cause of the injuries was an Arc Flash event.  To review what an Arc Flash Hazard click here.

There has not been details released regarding this event, so we do not know what the cause was, or what could have been done to prevent this accident.  Arc Flash Hazards are one of the least understood hazards within the workplace.  More than 2000 incidents occur every year, however it has only been recently that industry has begun to investigate methods to mitigate these problems within a market pressure that is requiring more and more matiance work to be done "on the run" without completely and effectively electrically isolating the equipment in question.

The the case at TCU, the proper PPE could have lessened the injuries.  Also if the accident happened during matience when the employees were exposed to live equipment, the equipment could have been de-energized.  If it happened while operating a breaker, the breaker may not have been maintained as per the manufacturer requirments.

There are many factors that can result in an incident.  I hope that there is a full report released on this incident and that the safety practices are revised.  TCU is lucky that the employees were only injured.