# back fed generator kills line man.



## farminghandyman (Mar 4, 2005)

some one want a documated case.

From the "Power lineman" fourm

http://www.powerlineman.com/lforum/showthread.php?t=711
Just some of the posts from the thread. 



> I hear he was killed from back feed from a generator hooked up incorrectly, it was in Flomoton, Al. Our prayers are with his family and co-workers.
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> This is no prank. The lineman killed yesterday was working for Pike Electric and picked up a line that was connected to someones house that hooked up a generator and did not disconnect from the distribution system. The linemans name was Ronnie Adams, age unknown. He had two children and a wife. As far as I know he was from Louisiana. They are trying to set up a fund for his family, but nothing I have heard of yet. I will let yall know more as I hear of it. I wish they would really teach folks the proper connection of generators, this was a really tragic and preventable accident. Stay Safe and think about it before you do it.
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> ...


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## farminghandyman (Mar 4, 2005)

more deaths,

http://forums.firehouse.com/showthread.php?t=71955

http://www.cdc.gov/Niosh/face/In-house/full9005.html


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## pixelphotograph (Apr 8, 2007)

Thats why my generator was installed by our county electric company and has a breaker and something that cuts the flow of electricity back to the lines. it only feeds it to the house when on.
I dont understand it but they said that way when their line men are working on the lines they dont get a surprise.


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## mdharris68 (Sep 28, 2006)

The guy who wanted the proof wouldn't believe this story, because the only official news part said that the death was undetermined at teh time it was written. I guess he was not going to believe the witness of the people who heard the story firsthand. :shrug:


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## Ross (May 9, 2002)

Treated as common knowledge around here by anyone who went through the 98 ice storm. I recall but can't find details on linesmen inured by back fed generators. Which gives me the chance to once again thank the many many linemen from all over Canada and the USA who came here to rebuild the distribution grid here after so much of it was pulled down with ice. 10 anniversary this year, a decade past but not forgotten.


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## agmantoo (May 23, 2003)

How about this version

Worker Electrocuted In Flomaton By Live Power Line

FLOMATON, Ala. -- An electric lineman was killed just before 5 p.m. Tuesday when he came into contact with a live power line. It was energized by a generator that was hooked up improperly.

The man -- whose name has not been released -- was transported by LifeFlight to Jay hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

The man worked for Pike Electric, Inc. in Mount Airy, North Carolina.

Alabama Power spokesman Bernie Fogarty says the company is "Deeply saddened and distressed by this tragic event."

Alabama authorities say they're looking for the person responsible for hooking up the generator.


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## pancho (Oct 23, 2006)

Thanks for the info but I was looking for documented cases where it was proven a home generator had backfed the main line. None of these were documented cases.
The reason I was looking is that the power plant I work in needed the info. Since I had heard of it so many times I looked for documented cases. I couldn't find a single one. There were a lot of suspected cases but each time they were investigated it was not a home generator back feeding the main line that caused the death. Our manager had some of our computer techs doing a search. So far they haven't found a single case.


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## BobK (Oct 28, 2004)

it really shouldn't be that great of a leap of faith to realize that wires are not one-way conduits and that it is pretty easy to transmit electricity over the service lines in a reverse direction....


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## agmantoo (May 23, 2003)

pancho
You will need to search OSHA records for possible documentation.
PS, I often eat breakfast with a supervisor of a line crew. I asked him about the risks and he passed it off as "not concerned" and further stated that the linemen ground the wires and that it would knock out the generator and that the grounded lines offered the safety required.


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## pancho (Oct 23, 2006)

agmantoo said:


> pancho
> You will need to search OSHA records for possible documentation.
> PS, I often eat breakfast with a supervisor of a line crew. I asked him about the risks and he passed it off as "not concerned" and further stated that the linemen ground the wires and that it would knock out the generator and that the grounded lines offered the safety required.


Thanks, I will pass it on to the techs. I had always heard about it happening and thought it would be easy to find documentation. So far it has been a lot of work with no results. I tried some of the sites posted but my boss does not want anything except documentated facts. We have a couple classes of engr students we give tours to and the question came up. The boss wanted an answer that was correct.


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## BobK (Oct 28, 2004)

a couple of OSHA documented deaths....

90-05 Lineman electrocuted while attaching a 2400V powerline to a pole-mounted insulator. Victimassured by supervisor that line was deenergized, but it was in fact energized by portablegenerator.

90-02 Leader of tree-trimming crew electrocuted during hurricane cleanup when he contacted adowned powerline he believed to be deenergized. Electric current from portable generatoroperating at gas station nearby reenergized powerline.

http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/pdfs/98-131.pdf


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## pancho (Oct 23, 2006)

BobK said:


> a couple of OSHA documented deaths....
> 
> 90-05 Lineman electrocuted while attaching a 2400V powerline to a pole-mounted insulator. Victimassured by supervisor that line was deenergized, but it was in fact energized by portablegenerator.
> 
> ...


Thanks, the boss will have to be satisfied with these two.


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## OkieDavid (Jan 15, 2007)

Thanks for the documented cases. As with most accidental deaths it could just as easily be traced back to failure to follow established safety practices with the electrocution simply being the facilitator to your demise. You may be my supervisor, co-worker, best friend or spouse....but please don't expect me to believe YOU when a circuit is dead.....A circuit I'm working on is considered energized until *I test it and determine it to be denergized*. I routinely work with primary electric (7800 volt) and I can assure you- I have NEVER seen nor would I stand by and allow a co-worker near a conducter until BOTH sides were grounded......I almost consider this one of those "Darwin Award" contenders......Go ahead and take yourself out of the gene pool if you want, I plan on going home to my family tonight. Not unlike failure to wear safety belts and then blaming your death on slick roads......The slick road may have contributed to your death but your failure to follow established safety procedures such as defering your travel until road conditions improved and failure to wear safety belts did.


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## ace admirer (Oct 5, 2005)

you're missing the point...multiple layers of safety is what safety is....so i guess you would think it ok for someone to point a rifle at you with the safety off and their finger on the trigger.....as long as you checked the rifle early and it was unloaded...good grief....


all accidents happen when a sequence of events go wrong.and there are always things going wrong....multiple safeties save us all.


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## OkieDavid (Jan 15, 2007)

I don't think I'm missing the point at all as the procedure of isolation and grounding (often called "safe clearance procedures") is the prescribed format for work on bare conducters for which I am trained/certifed to work on. I DO appreciate someone pointing out an error in my thinking/actions if they perceive a safety issue with some action I'm about to take. In my scenerio- I am taking responsibility for my own safety and not relying on someone else to do it for me by grounding the lines and isolating myself from any source of stray current be it a co-worker who accidentally closed the wrong cut out down the road or Joe citizen backfeeding from a generator. 
As to your example- I would not be comfortable with someone pointing a firearm at me (verified as loaded or empty) as I clearly recognize it violates another principle of gun safety in that you don't point a gun at anything you do not intend to shoot. In that scenerio I would excute a response to increase my safety/surviveability such as speak up, remove the gun or put some barrier/distance between myself and the shooter......
I wholeheartedly agree with your statement of safety requiring layers. We EACH have a responsibility to ourselves and co-workers to stop someone from doing something stupid if we can. Many times an accident is prevented simply because one person said "hold on a second, lets think about this". I am convinced we agree that safety truely is everyone's responsibility.


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## watcher (Sep 4, 2006)

I'm not saying this didn't happen but I searched google, google news, msnbc.com and the Mobile Register and found nothing on it. Anyone have a link that goes to a news site or something beside more forums?


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## Forty Acres (May 14, 2007)

You know if you look hard enough, there are instances of people dying from choking on bubble gum. There is too much hysteria and hype with this topic. 

To begin with, the generators that most people buy (and can afford) to get them through a power outage won't even power a whole house, let alone a whole neighborhood. They have either 20 or 30 amp breakers. Look in your breaker panel and see how many and how the breakers are for your house. Do you think that one or two of those circuits would power a neighborhood? 

I have a generator that is rated for 8,300 watts peak & 6,500 watts continuous. With this generator, it will run my refrigerator, my freezer, TV, and a few lights. It will only power my hot water heater if everything else is disconnected. There is no way in H.E. Double Toothpicks that it would even begin to energize more than one house.

So think about it folks..............If I was to leave my house connected to the service line, start up my generator and try to start the whole neighborhoods water heaters, furnaces, freezers, refrigerators, etc,.........it would throw the breaker on my generator immediately. If the breaker sticks, it fries my generator.

Now granted if the break in your electric service is in your yard, then I could see how the line could be energized and put a lineman at risk. But lets use a little common sense here. And a large, industrial generator may be able to power several houses - but I would think that they would be properly installed.

But regardless, for a lineman to be hurt, two things must occur. 1). Negligence by the homeowner for not disconnecting his house from the service line. 2). And negligence by the lineman for not properly grounding the line that he is working on.

Just pull the meter and your house is completely isolated.

Survivor of the 2008 Oklahoma Ice Storm.


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