Success – seven simple letters make up this impactful word.

These days, it feels like every electrical safety post on social media is focused on dramatic arc flash accidents – the more intense the imagery, the more engagement it gets. But I prefer to highlight something different: the powerful, positive outcomes that come from successful electrical safety training.

NFPA 70E Update Training – A Moment That Stood Out

Last summer, I was conducting an NFPA 70E update and refresher course when a student asked a question that caught me completely off guard. He said their team goes through this training every three years, as required. To his knowledge, they’ve never experienced an electrical incident — no arc flashes, no shocks, no electrocutions. So, he wondered, why keep doing it?

Besides providing the canned answer that it is a requirement of NFPA 70E, I gave him a better answer.

“How long have you worked here?” I asked.
“Thirteen years,” he replied.

Without hesitation, I said: “Then the training is working.”

I often get the “here we go again” attitude with refresher training. It’s easy to think of safety training as a “check the box” obligation, but the purpose is to keep electrical safety top of mind and prevent complacency. Electrical safety isn’t a one-time fix. It’s a continuous effort.

He still looked a bit unsure, so I elaborated.

Around twenty-five years ago when NFPA 70E was first gaining traction, there was a lot of push back to the rapidly improving safe work practices – especially when it comes to things like PPE, energized electrical work permits and only working on equipment placed into an electrically safe work condition. Back then, I often heard comments like, “We’ve never had to do this before.” But I’d always say: in time, this will be all people know. These practices, paired with regular training, would help drive down electrical injuries and fatalities.

I also predicted that after a generation or two of new electrical workers with NFPA 70E as part of their foundation, they’d see things differently. They’d look back at the way we used to do things — working energized without arc flash PPE — and wonder how we ever thought that was okay. I know, because I worked like that. I did plenty of energized work in my earlier days, and I’m grateful to be here to talk about it.

Now, decades later, with regular training and updated standards becoming the norm, we’ve seen a real reduction in injuries and fatalities. It works! Plain and simple.

A Life-Saving Lesson in Action

One of my earliest success stories came over twenty years ago during a long-term training contract with a large energy provider. I delivered monthly safety training sessions to support their rollout of a new electrical safety initiative based on NFPA 70E.

During the very first session, I introduced the concept of establishing an electrically safe work condition — a completely new practice for most of the attendees.

When I returned the next month, a supervisor who had attended the first session pulled me aside and said, “What you taught last time saved two contractors’ lives.”

I was stunned.

He explained: two contractors were performing routine maintenance in an electrical room with 480V exposed open bus equipment. They’d done this task — cleaning, retorquing joints, and inspecting — annually for years. The single disconnect for the system had been opened, so they assumed it was safe to proceed as they had always done.

Preparing to get started, the lead person suddenly stopped everything. “Hold on,” he said. “We just learned we need to verify absence of voltage. Let me grab my meter.”

Even though they’d done this many times before, he wanted to lead by example. Good thing he did — the bus was still energized. Despite the disconnect handle showing “OFF,” the internal mechanism had failed, leaving the circuit live.

If they had gone ahead as usual, there likely would have been two fatalities.

Let’s Create More of These Stories

No graphic photos, no tragic outcomes — just a simple, powerful example of how safety training prevents accidents. These are the stories we need to share more often. They’re worth far more than a few “likes.”

Let’s keep pushing for more success stories and fewer horror stories.