Living Dangerously

Today I was reminded what it is to live. The realization of the famous Errol Flynn quote, “When I die I want to know I have lived”. I reflected on why people do dangerous things.

Maybe dangerous is not quite the word, more like taking calculated risks. At these times, especially after the event, you are alive, larger than normal and just high.

Today’s event was energizing an electrical switchboard. It was not a large installation but well in to the industrial class of electrical gear. The fault level of a switchboard defines how loudly it will bang if something goes wrong. This board had a potential fault level of about 50,000A. For the duration of the fault that is about equivalent to the output of four 747 engines – imagine standing in the exhaust stream of that!

As these things go I set up a fairly thorough test regime before energizeation. One of these tests detected a short circuit on part of the bus bar system. If the switch had of been closed on that it would have been very bad! But we found the problem, a pile of bolts from construction of the bus bars had been left in the bus duct. Luckily one was shorting a phase to earth. I say luckily because if it had of been just not touching it would have flashed over when the power was put on. We removed the offending bolt and spent the next hour looking at every square cm of the bus bar (but found none).

As the engineer on the job, in the great tradition of engineers from roman times onward, it fell on me to close the circuit breakers. The one feeding the board from an existing switchboard looked like an overgrown light switch except with copper bus bars feeding into it (yes you could see the bus bars).

I removed the padlocks that had ensured the switch could not be moved (normal electrical safety practice). Trying to look as cool as possible for the boys while my heart was pumping I pulled the switch up. Clunk. Part one done and smiles all round.

Now came closing the incoming breaker on the board we had found the fault on. This time the serious bits of the overgrown light switch and associated copper work were nicely shielded behind a steel facia. Once more I pulled the switch up (it takes about 10kg of force). Clunk. Energised. Job done. The bridge did not fall.

It is hard to explain the exhilaration of doing that sort of thing. The risks were quite low but I knew the consequences of catastrophe. I think it is the understanding of the consequence that makes surviving it feel so good.