Published in the December 2007 American Longwall Magazine

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health has developed a training program consisting of a DVD and instructor's pamphlet to motivate workers to take note of their own behaviors and to seek more in-depth arc flash training because, as researchers said, "with proper precautions, injuries from such accidents can be avoided".

The 26-minute informational training production is geared for workers, trainers, contractors and mine visitors, and includes testimony from workers who have been seriously hurt by an arc flash. In addition to burns, injuries can also include temporary or permanent hearing loss from the sound energy accompanying the explosion.

"Non-contact electric arc injuries are the largest single injury category of electrical injuries in the US mining industry," NIOSH research psychologist Dr Kathleen Kowalski-Trakofler noted. "It is estimated that five to 10 arc flash explosions occur in electric equipment every day in the US."

The impetus for the project's development began with NIOSH researcher James Cawley, who assembled a team to examine arc flash causes and preventions in the mining industry.

With Kowalski-Trakofler's added expertise in the areas of human behavior and work organization, a research group went on to establish recommendations as part of its Arc Flash Awareness program, which consists of the DVD and instructor documents.

The study, which to date has resulted in one peer-reviewed journal paper, several presentations (including the National Safety Council annual meeting) and two recent IEEE technical conference papers, consisted of two phases. The first was to evaluate the details of 836 arc flash accidents over 11 years as documented by the US Mine Safety and Health Administration.

In the second phase, there were personal interviews with 32 workers who had been hurt and details of their accidents were examined.

Researchers looked at worker experience, time into shift when an accident took place, the individual's judgment and decision-making ability, and the organizational controls and safety climate at each operation.

"The key finding supported in both phases is the importance of the worker's judgment and decision-making in arc flash incidents," Kowalski-Trakofler said.

"That finding, in addition to the importance of management applying appropriate engineering and administrative controls, are emphasized in the training program."

According to records from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics covering 1992-2002, about 99% of electrically-related fatalities were classified as electrocution. The BLS often considers arc flash burns to be one of several types of "electrical burns", and these are seldom fatal; in fact, "electrical burns" resulted in 39% of all on-the-job non-fatal electrical injuries.

A NIOSH conference paper published last year pointed to BLS data for the construction industry that reflected a 75% drop in injuries after arc flash prevention awareness programs started. While the connection is not scientifically correlated, the team hopes for the same result in the mining industry.

The group recently looked at MSHA statistics for 1996-2005, which tracked what MSHA classified as "non-contact electric arc burns" (arc flash) injuries, and found 381 were reported to the agency during that period for the mining industry.

Details were even broken down by extraction type, with 55% coming from bituminous coal operations and the balance from stone, sand and gravel. Furthermore, 42% of the cases occurred underground.

Troubleshooting, maintenance and repair played a role in more than two-thirds of mining injuries across the board, the team noted in their study. Although records indicate an increase in injuries over time, electrical regulations for underground mining differ from those in other industries.

The voluntary application of industry standard NFPA 70E - Standard for Electrical Safety in the Workplace could significantly improve mine electrical safety. "Many of the electrical and arc flash concepts used by workers in other industries could easily be applied in the mining industry to supplement the electrical safety provisions of Title 30 - Code of Federal Regulations," Cawley said.

The DVD, which includes footage of a staged arc flash accident to illustrate its dangers and after-effects, has been enthusiastically received, and receives the second-highest number of hits after the home page on the federal agency's mining website.

"The NIOSH Arc Flash Awareness DVD fills a perceived void in electrical training related to arc flash: the worker testimonial," Kowalski-Trakofler said.

"This product delivers true stories told by electrical workers in their own words; telling what happened to them, how it affected their lives and why they should have never worked 'live'."

Included is the importance of management involvement in preventing future accidents, as well as the fundamental need for engineering and administrative controls.

The program provides information to an industry that has been slow to recognize the magnitude of this issue and available prevention methods, Kowalski-Trakofler said. Results in other industries, where awareness programs are already underway, are encouraging.

The program can be downloaded from the NIOSH website, and with a high demand for the information from companies, unions, and government agencies across the nation, a limited number of hard-copy DVDs are available for distribution. The agency is also working with partners to increase the reach of the production.

Looking forward, the agency is continuing awareness-training in the electrical safety arena. "NIOSH is currently working on an arc flash training module for mine electricians and non-electricians that builds on the message conveyed in the Arc Flash Awareness training DVD," said Kowalski-Trakofler. "This new training product is now in the testing stage."

The product is due out early next year and will help workers identify arcing hazards and provide measures to prevent serious injury.

For a hard copy DVD of Arc Flash Awareness (Publication No. 2007-116D) contact cdcinfo@cdc.gov for information. Alternatively, download the program at

www.cdc.gov/niosh/mining/products/product152.htm