Electrician receives first degree burns in arc flash

Location: Abbotsford

Regulated industry sector: Electrical - Low voltage electrical system (30V to 750V)

Incident overview

An electrician was replacing the circuit breaker that fed power to the units in the electrical room of an apartment. The electrician did not de-energize the meter stack where the breaker was located and the plastic insulator between the two bus bars was broken off. This allowed the metal connection tab on the breaker to contact nearby energized bus bars and an arc flash occurred. The electrician suffered first degree burns and all three bus bars were melted through.