After several years in numerous other occupations, my oldest son came to work with me as an electrician.  I was teaching him the trade.  Sometimes it wasn’t the lesson I intended.

One day the job involved wiring in a club house.  This club house had been constructed from an old school house with an added section.  In time another addition was built to house a walk in cooler.  The walk in cooler was built with heavy insulation and heavy doors.  The actual refrigerating power unit sat atop the walk in cooler.

As it turned out the most critical information that we needed was not immediately observable.

The refrigerating unit, sitting atop the walk in cooler, was sitting free.  Not fastened down.

In order to facilitate getting power to the refrigerating unit, sitting free atop the walk in cooler, we had to move (slide) the walk in cooler a short distance.  In the course of sliding the cooler, with the refrigerating unit atop it, sitting free, the refrigerating unit came into contact with a low sitting roof beam.  Consequently it (the refrigerating unit sitting free atop the walk in cooler) slid on the roof of the walk in cooler until it overbalanced and came down.

On my son’s head.

It was not a light-weight piece of equipment, and for a moment I thought I had killed him.

He was alright except for a nasty bump on the head.  I still sometimes wonder if I damaged his health more than we thought at the time.

Such accidents are not unusual.

I know a carpenter that was working with his father.  He accidently severed his father’s finger with a skill saw.

One contractor I worked for was building shelving with one of his employees.  The boss was standing behind a large piece of pegboard.  He held up a small piece of wood.  The employee thought he saw the white wood through one of the peg holes.  Using an electric screw gun the employee drove a screw into the boss’ wrist.  The boss told him to back it out.  The employee did so and the boss drove himself to the ER at the hospital.

I am sure that it was occurrences like these that brought about the safety laws that we review, depending on the scope of a job, each week or each job.

Today one of our guiding principles is “safety first.”

The NEC (National Electric Code) requires different grounding methods depending on whether or not an addition is attached or separated from the one which has the electrical service.  If a building is separate, a ground rod (or rods)  is required at the point of the disconnect.  If the building or addition is attached, a ground wire is run alongside the wire feeder.

For some time this requirement changed every three years with the code update.  Often there were times that the new code change reverted to a previous requirement.  As a result I was often required to go back to a job site and change the grounding back to the method I had used 4 years before.

I had numerous discussions with inspectors regarding this particular code requirement.  It was particularly aggravating when an inspector had not kept up on the code changes.  I am afraid I sometimes lost patience with them.

There was one particular inspector with whom I had a hard time regarding the code requirement.  So I called up a different inspector to get his input.  The second inspector agreed with me in the way I had done the grounding.  At the next code cycle, the code was clarified to indicate the way I had done the grounding was correct.

When I started my own electrical contracting business, I had to pass a test to be an Electrical Administrator, which is required in the State of Washington.  I took portions of the test 8 different times before I passed all of the sections.  It cost about $500.00 to take and pass all the testing required.

At that time the State of Idaho did not require the same license.  So I also acquired my Idaho license to run an electrical contracting business.  Today the requirements in Idaho are more restrictive than in Washington.  In fact more restrictive than Washington ever was.

At one time most states had a grandfather clause, which stated that if you have passed the testing in a particular state, the licensing would be reciprocal.  By passing the testing in one state you could acquire the licensing for several states.  For instance, for awhile Wyoming was reciprocal with seven other states.

Today that is no longer the case.  Washington is not reciprocal with any other state.

One day I was headed out to look at a job north of Deer Park, Washington.  (about a 35 miles away.)  It was a warm day and I was tired.  As I drove, I felt myself getting drowsy.  Then I unexpectedly came upon a road construction crew making road repairs.

I had to hit the brakes pretty hard to keep from running into the vehicle in front of me.  However I did not have to squeal my tires to avoid an accident.

While I was waiting to move forward I noticed a young lady with a flag running back and forth across the front of the line.  Eventually the line started to move.  As I came up even with her, she stopped me.  I rolled down my window and she proceeded to bawl me out.  Read me the riot act.  Lecture me from the book.

She said that I had been driving too fast and that I could have killed her.  I didn’t quite follow her logic, but I apologized and she let me go on.

As I proceeded to the job site, I was anything but drowsy.  During the drive and the succeeding time looking at the prospective job I couldn’t get what she had told me out of my mind.  I decided the correct thing to do would be to stop on my return trip and apologize again.

I thought I would mention that she had probably saved my life, as I was getting sleepy and she was doing a good job.

When I got back to the location of the road repairs the road crew was gone.  The Flag Girl was gone.  Everything was back to normal.

Too bad!

I have always admired people who did a good job and were diligent in doing their work.

Maybe someday I will run across her and I can explain to her I really wasn’t trying to run into her, … the first time.