David Sweetman, Marketing & Business Development Director for the Di-LOG Group, talks to PEW about the critical safety measures that your customers need to be aware of surrounding safe isolation, whilst highlighting the deadly consequences if proper test equipment isn’t supplied.
Our daily routine has changed considerably during the past several months and humanity has adapted swiftly to protect themselves and others around them. The few extra minutes to apply your face mask and the regular application of hand sanitiser really does save Lives against Covid-19.
Many people in the industry, including myself, have spent years campaigning to help make our working environment a safer place and as a manufacturer of Electrical Test Equipment, I feel that we have a responsibility to the industry to keep critical safety equipment affordable and easily accessible.
Over the past 12 months, Di-LOG has invested well over £30,000 in the product development and marketing of Safe Isolation test equipment and our message has remained clear throughout:
Safely isolating all electrical circuits saves lives.
When preparing this article, I contacted Louise Adamson (previously Taggart), an associate of mine, who I have had the pleasure of meeting on several occasions. Louise’s heartfelt story (Michael’s Story) has sadly reinforced just why taking a few extra minutes to implement a safe isolation procedure, is critical for the safety of your customer and others around them.
Michael’s Story
Louise Adamson recalls the tragic story of her brother, Michael: “My brother died at a time when safe isolation had been taught to apprentices for the 20 years previous. We’re now 15 years further on, and it breaks our hearts a little more each time we hear about an incident caused because safe isolation is not being put into practice. Employers of persons who conduct work on low voltage systems should provide the right tools and equipment so their workforce can do their job safely. If they are not being provided with voltage testers, proving units and LOTO kits, they must STOP THE JOB. Because there’s nothing more important than you going home to your loved ones at the end of your shift. My wee brother didn’t get home to his fiancée. He didn’t get to become an uncle to my two wee boys. He didn’t get to become a dad to children of his own. He died at the age of 26 in an entirely preventable incident. Safe isolation saves lives and stops such heartbreak.”
HSE Statistics
Although it is difficult to know how many of the following statistics were caused by inadequate safe isolation, in the five years between 2015 and 2020, there were 21 fatalities reported to the HSE under RIDDOR which were caused by contact with electricity. This reduced to one death in the year 19/20. But there has already been at least one fatality that I’m aware of so far in year 20/21.
You are more likely to die if you’re involved in an electrical incident than you are in other types of work-related incident. This is taken from a HSE training brochure: “In Great Britain, roughly one in every 50 electrical accidents at work result in a fatality, compared with one in 500 from other causes. As well as electric shock, other electrically related injuries arise from burns, arcing and fires. Many of the injuries can take a long while to heal and often result in life-changing conditions.”
“If they are not being provided with voltage testers, proving units and LOTO kits, they must STOP THE JOB. Because there’s nothing more important than you going home to your loved ones at the end of your shift.”
Di-LOG’s Safe Isolation Range
Di-LOG’s award-winning Safe Isolation range of products offer our distribution network a clear and concise range of life saving safety equipment, that is not only competitively priced, is a critical part of the safe isolation procedure, as set out in the Electricity at Works Regulation 1989 to all who work in the LV (low voltage) industry. Our new DLPKx Series of Voltage Indicator Proving Unit Kits along with our DLLOCx Series of comprehensive Lockout Tagout (LOTO) devices covers everything you need to help us promote a safer industry to your customers.
All of our safety lockout equipment fully conforms to all the strict safety standards including the very important regulations set for two pole voltage indicators.
DI-LOG NEEDS YOUR HELP AND SUPPORT!
The team at Di-LOG are working closely with our national distribution network of electrical wholesalers and online specialists, to make our complete safety range of products easily accessible and affordable to all levels within the electrical & mechanical industry.
Our national sales and technical teams are on hand to assist you with any questions that arise with the implementation of making safe isolation equipment available to your customers, as we continue to make our industry a much safer place to work.
For more information on our complete range of Safe Isolation products, please visit: https://www.dilog.co.uk/category/safe-isolation-lockout-tagout/safe-isolation-test-equipment/
