Story 18 of 52

By M. Snarky

December 26, 2024. Yesterday marked the 30^th anniversary of an industrial accident that almost killed me. According to the ER doctor at Providence Saint Joseph’s Medical Center in Burbank CA, it should have killed me.

I was working as a Journeyman in the electrical trade at the time, and the contractor I was working for landed a job for some tenant improvement (TI) work on the 6^th floor of the DIC Enterprises building. It was a relatively simple job; relocate some 3-way light switches in the file room from one of the existing doorways that was going to be removed and closed off and move the switches to a new doorway location that was cut in on an adjacent wall. In the trade, this was typical, benign TI work that I had done hundreds of times before.

A 3-way switch means that there are two switch locations where the lights can be turned on or off as you enter or exit a room, generally, on opposite sides of a room.

Also typical was that this was a commercial office building with a 480-volt 3-phase wye alternating current power supply that utilized 277-volt A, B, and C phases for the lighting circuits. Yeah, that’s right kids: 277-volts from one leg (one wire) of the wye. This is common, industrial strength power here in the US and it must be handled with great respect, or it will unceremoniously kill you.

The 12-foot high suspended 2-by-2 acoustic t-bar ceiling of this room was also typical of a commercial office building. It’s one of those ceilings with 2-foot square drop-in tiles and a metal t-bar grid to hold them in place. The t-bar grid also holds the lighting fixtures in place. Everything is held and tied together with #10 or #12 tie wire where one end is tied off to the t-bar, and the other end is tied off to an eyebolt or a bracket that is fastened to the metal decking or concrete building structure above. Light fixtures have additional #8 or #10 self-tapping sheet metal screws that fasten them to the t-bar. All in the name of seismic safety.

I was working with an apprentice named Miguel. In trade parlance, he was “green,” meaning inexperienced – he only had a couple of years under his belt. But Miguel was a quick learner and we got along well.

I proceeded to do the investigative pre-work.  This consisted of identifying the line side conduit which is the conduit that contains the “feeder” wires – a.k.a., “hot side” – of the circuit, and then identifying the load side conduit which is the conduit that connects to the lighting.

I won’t bore you with the details, but both switch conduits connected to a common junction-box (j-box) above the ceiling, and the feeder side was at the switch that was not being relocated. Easy-peasy: remove both switches, open the wiring on the feeder side switch and cap it off, pull out some wiring, cut in a new switch box, drop in a new conduit, pull in new wiring, make appropriate splices and pigtails, reinstall switches. Done.

During a critical part of the work, I had instructed Miguel not to splice and pigtail either switch until I was done with working with the j-box in the ceiling, which was sandwiched between an air duct and the t-bar, and I only had about 6-inches of space to work with. Well, apparently the part about not splicing did not get through, and Miguel energized the circuit anyway…and me along with it.

I was standing on the 9^th rung of a 10-foot ladder and was leaning heavily into one of the 2-by-2 openings to access the j-box, partially resting my arms on the metal t-bar. I am always careful when I’m doing make-up work, which is trade slang for stripping and splicing wiring, however, you handle the make-up work differently if you know you are working on a hot circuit. Well, I did not know I was working on a hot circuit until I was stripping a wire and the finger of my right hand was touching the exposed metal of my wire stripping tool. This now made me part of the circuit, and the 277-volts flowed through my body because my arms were grounded to the t-bar ceiling.

Being that your muscles work with small electrical currents that are controlled by your brain, when higher voltage goes through your body, your muscles contract violently. I was situated in such a way that when my muscles contracted, I lifted myself off of the ladder and suspended my body by my arms and the pain from this hyper-contraction of my muscles was unbelievable.

Oddly, even though I was aware that I was being electrocuted, I could still think clearly, and I was telling myself to let go, but I had no control over my body that was now vibrating with the 60hz of the electrical current flowing through me.

I could smell my hair and flesh burning and sensed a metallic taste in my mouth.

Suddenly, I felt that I could float, and this is the moment when I saw the white light in front of me. I stopped feeling pain. It seemed that I could gravitate toward the white light without much effort, almost as if it was pulling me – beckoning me – to go to it. I could still think crystal clear. The last thought I remembered thinking in my semi-conscious state was, “I can’t go; my wife and kids need me…I can’t go!”

The next thing I knew was that I had hit the floor and landed hard on my right-hand side. I have no memory of falling. Hitting the floor either knocked the wind out of me or knocked the life back into me, but I was sucking really hard for air. Now that I was awake and conscious and could think clearly, the first thing I tried to do was stand up. I was extremely wobbly. I looked around and Miguel was standing there like a statue with his mouth agape and his eyes popping out, like he had just seen a ghost. I tried to yell, “Call 9-1-1!” but the voice that came out of my mouth was not mine; it sounded unintelligible, and strangely like someone that had a severe speech impediment.

It’s hard to pin this down, but I think the entire ordeal lasted about a minute. A minute that would forever change my life.

When I realized that my speech was compromised, I tried walking but ended up stumbling clumsily over to the wall and tried to write 9-1-1 on it. But I couldn’t write it out. My body was not fully responding to my brain. It was at this point that I remember thinking to myself, “God, thank you for letting me live,” and, in a moment of amor fati,  “Well, if this is my permanent state, I’ll just have to accept it.” Suddenly, about four people from the office rushed into the file room, evidentially after hearing my body hit the floor, took one look at me, told me to lie down and someone called 9-1-1. I couldn’t even figure out how to take off my tool belt – my brain was saying one thing, but my body was doing something else – and so I lied down on the floor with tools and parts spilling out all over.

I remember not saying another word while lying on the floor uncomfortably, writhing in pain, not knowing how bad I was injured, and staring at the 2-by-2 opening in the ceiling that tried to kill me and asking myself how did I survive this? Why, did I survive this?

The paramedics got to me pretty quickly. As they were taking my vitals and connecting electrodes for the EKG machine, one of them started asking questions and I was terrified about answering them because it might validate that I was perma-fried. “Can you tell me what happened?” I hesitated for a moment, then slowly replied, “I was electrocuted by a 277-volt lighting circuit.” My voice actually sounded better, but it was still far from normal. “Were you standing on that ladder when this happened?” “Yes.” “Do you know what day this is?” “Yes, it’s Monday, December 26, 1994, the day after Christmas.” “Do you know where you are?” “Yes, I’m at the DIC Enterprises building in Burbank.” The questioning was interrupted by one of the other paramedics; “The victim is in atrial fibrillation!” “Get him ready for transport,” said the other.

They lifted me to the gurney, strapped me in, and wheeled me to the elevator. On the way to the ground floor, one of the paramedics said, “You’re lucky you’re alive!” I was loaded into the ambulance and transported to “St. Joe’s,” as the locals call Saint Joseph’s Medical Center. This was the most swerving, jarring, bouncy, uncomfortable ride I ever experienced. I started to wonder if the ambulance had wandered onto a demolition derby track. To occupy my mind while en route, I performed a self-check to determine if I had lost control of any of my extremities, and to my delight, I had no problem moving anything. At least this part of me was not perma-fried.

During the ride, they asked more questions. They needed my full name, address, phone number, emergency contact, my current health status, and if I was taking any prescription medications, etc. It wasn’t long before we were pulling into the ambulance driveway at St. Joe’s where some hospital staff members were waiting for our arrival. They quickly exchanged information and wheeled me into the ICU where they moved me from the gurney to the bed, switched EKG connections, and started an IV drip. I was still in shock, the word of which now took on an entirely new meaning to me.

“Patients heart is still in A-Fib, there’s a 1^st to 2^nd degree burn line across the shoulders below the back of the neck, and a 3^rd degree burn on the bottom of the right forearm about the size of a quarter. The patient lost consciousness during the electrocution, but he’s lucid now.”

All of this happened before noon.

As the attending physician was examining me, he said, “Hello Mr. Freeman, it appears that you’ve had quite the morning; can you tell me what happened?” I gave him the same story I gave to the paramedics. “I see,” he replied. “Where does it hurt?” I replied in a wavering voice, “My head is pounding. My right shoulder is throbbing. All of my upper body muscles are extremely sore. I feel like I got run over by a trash truck.” “Okay, I hear you, and here’s what we’re going to do; we’re going to put you on a morphine drip to ease the pain and give you some medication to get your heart back into normal sinus rhythm, then we’re going to treat that 3^rd degree burn on you arm and send you over to x-ray to make sure that you didn’t fracture your arm or shoulder. You’re lucky to be alive.” I replied, “That’s the second time this morning that I’ve been told how lucky I am, how do you mean that, exactly?” The doctor replied with, “Well, Mr. Freeman, that 277-volt shock you received has a nasty reputation of being fatal. The ones that survive are usually in such bad shape that we’re just trying to find out what’s still working. You, on the other hand, not only survived the shock, but you are also apparently in pretty good shape, considering the circumstances, and we’re going to find out what, if anything, is not working for you.” Lucky me. Just another day in the life of an electrician.

Shortly thereafter, my wife Kim walked into the ICU which raised my spirits considerably. I was in the midst of telling her what happened when the doctor came into the room. Lots of Q&A ensued. This is when the doctor told me that if the medication did not bring my heart back into normal sinus rhythm…they were going to have to use the defibrillator. Yes, that’s right; they might have to shock me again. I was not keen on the possibility of this happening.

Over the course of the next several hours, my voice went back to normal, and my body started responding to my brain.

The good news was that although the shoulder x-ray revealed some tissue damage and joint swelling, there wasn’t a fracture or break, and my body eventually responded to the heart medication and after 48-hours, my heart was back to normal sinus rhythm. After 72-hours, I was released to go home. The bad news was that the 3^rd degree burn on my arm was going to need a skin graft which was performed at the Grossman Burn Center in Sherman Oaks, CA several days later.

Oddly, after only a couple of days of recovery at home, I received two visitors from my employers insurance company asking me if I was ready to go back to work. Go back to work? Seriously? This didn’t pass the smell test. I told them that my doctor hasn’t authorized me to go back to work yet, and they needed to check with him. This is when it occurred to me that the insurance company was overtly trying to rush me to go back to work. This is when I knew that I needed a professional to represent me, so I hired George Shulman, a workers comp attorney who took care of my case.

Due to the extensive muscle damage to my upper body, it took 7-months of twice weekly physical therapy sessions before I was allowed to return to work. The first couple of months of recovery were brutal. It hurt to raise my arms. It hurt to breathe deeply. It was a struggle to get dressed or take a shower. I was extremely weak. My muscles were so damaged that it limited my upper body range of motion. I had to stretch all of those muscles back out over the course of the PT sessions, which was a slow, painful process.

I’ll tell you right now that the economic reality at the time was that the workers compensation payments didn’t even come close to my normal income, and we found ourselves on the brink of bankruptcy during my recovery.

I don’t know if the law has changed since then, but at the time, I was eligible to take advantage of vocational rehabilitation training which would expire within a 5-year window. I took the required aptitude test and was told that they have never seen anyone score so highly and that I was eligible to take any of the training they had in their extensive catalog. The problem was that there was no new career that was going to put me in the same income level that I was already making, so I passed on retraining and went back into the trade.

I didn’t want to go back to work for the same electrical contractor that I was working for when I got hurt, so I called Joe Kamashian, one of my old bosses and after hearing my story he offered to rehire me for more money than I was making with the previous company. This was another lucky break.

In the meantime, my dad upgraded the old DOS computer that he bought the family a year earlier to Windows 95…and I was hooked. I learned as much as I could about PC’s, even considering computer programming. This set the wheels in motion for my interest in somehow making a living in the computer field.

By spring of 1999, I called Mr. Shulman and told him that I wanted to revisit the vocational retraining opportunity, and to my amazement, there were two new computer focused certification training paths. One was for Certified Novell Engineer (CNE) and the other was for Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (MCSE) for Windows NT 4.0. At the time, Novell was the well-established 800lb gorilla in the network operating system (NOS) space, and Microsoft was a newcomer. I consulted with my dad about which one I should choose, and my dad quipped, “Go with Novell. Microsoft sucks.” Naturally, I went with Microsoft.

But this choice did not come without sacrifice or great effort.

To beat the 5-year sunset for retraining, I had to double-up on night classes at Mount Sierra College in Pasadena to finish certification in 9-months instead of the usual 1.5 years while also working full time, but I sucked it up. I had little time for any social activities. After 9-months of long days and longer nights, I pulled it off and obtained my MCSE certification on December 27, 1999, exactly 5-years and 1-day after the accident.

Incidentally, before I was fully certified, I was invited to a meeting with Dave Farguson, the GM of Center Automotive Group (BMW, and Chrysler/Jeep). I had already been moonlighting for him doing some electrical work at the dealership during a parts department remodel, so we already had a working relationship. What I didn’t know was that he was looking at a new Windows based Dealer Management System (DMS) named Carman to replace his mainframe-based Reynolds & Reynolds DMS at BMW, and ADP DMS at Chrysler/Jeep.

I was unaware that during a previous meeting with all of the departmental managers discussing the move to Carman, Dave asked the group if they knew anyone who he could hire to manage the new computers and network. My brother Scott was working as the BMW parts manager and Scott knew that I was attending night school and working toward my MSCE and threw my name into the conversation. Lucky once again.

At our meeting, Dave asked me some questions about my certification training status and when I would obtain it. I told him that I had a couple more classes to finish before taking the Pearson certification tests, but I should be done by the end of the year. This is when Dave offered me a job starting with an $80,000 salary. I was only making about $52,000 per year in the electrical trade, so this was a major bump in income for me and my family. Lucky yet again. Or was it providence?

1994 was a rough year for my family. It started with the Northridge earthquake in January and ended with a near electrocution in December. I’m lucky to be alive.

Looking back through the lens of time, this accident provided opportunities that I never would have had otherwise. It also changed my focus and my outlook on life in so many positive ways that it’s hard to define. I’ll put it this way; Being so close to death actually brought me closer to life, and something positive can come from an unfortunate circumstance.

The accident also made me more spiritual in that I now believe that there is an afterlife, but this is a complicated topic because this also validates that there must be a world of spirits. If there is a world of spirits, does this also mean that there is a heaven and a hell? If so, this also means that God and Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary and Satan are not fictional characters. If these biblical figures are not fictional characters, it means that the bible is true. If the bible is true, and God exists, I have questions. Questions like, “God; why did you create the mosquito and the tsetse fly? What purpose do they serve other than to spread blood borne diseases (that you also presumably created) that kill people in some of the most agonizing, horrific ways possible?” “Why did you take our son Travis away from us?” Questions like this flood my mind. This is my Pandora’s box.

I may be conflicted but I’m still the luckiest man on the planet.

Instagram: @m.snarky

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