Page 40 - IEC Insights Jan-Feb2019

SAFETY CORNER

Hazards and Risk

By Thomas Domitrovich, P.E.

azards and risks are two “exposure or liability to injury, pain, be a hazard until you either place it in
terms that we all have harm, or loss.” If we put these two a precarious position or modify or use
to understand. It’s not definitions together we understand it in some way. Now let’s relate this
necessarily just something for that a hazard is a source of exposure or discussion to the electrical industry.
Hthe electrical worker. Hazards liability to injury, pain, harm, or loss.
are all around us and we all accept some NFPA 70E defines an electrical hazard
level of risk each and every day but Hazards are in fact all around us as “a dangerous condition such that
many use these terms without really every day; some we recognize and contact or equipment failure can
understanding them. This article will help some we may not. Common hazards result in electric shock, arc flash burn,
identify the differences between hazards in our everyday life include but are thermal burn, or arc blast injury.” Some
and risks and provide some insight to not limited to the following: examples of electrical hazards include
how NFPA 70E looks at these two terms. • Icy roads and sidewalks but are not limited to the following:
• Sharp knives with blades exposed • Exposed energized lugs and terminations
• Poor brakes on vehicles like cars, • Energized enclosures not
HAZARDS motorcycles, trucks and more bonded correctly
• The slippery floor of a bathtub • Unprotected conductors
Merriam Webster tells us that a • Conductors with damaged insulation
hazard is “a source of danger.” This These examples present a hazard to • Overhead power lines
same source tells us that “danger” is individuals. An object itself may not

38 Insights Magazine | January/February 2019 | www.ieci.org