Crazy shit...
So some crazy shit went down at work today. Let me start from the beginning.
So part of my job is that once a quarter I have to inspect the sprinkler systems in all the buildings on campus with John, our representative from SinglexGrinnell, who is the company that installed most of the sprinkler systems. It's a complicated process and I won't go into it, but once a year we have to do the annual inspection, which is even more complicated. During the annual we have to do our normal quarterly inspection, plus we have to test the fire pumps. The fire pumps reside in the basements of the largest buildings on campus. Total there are 9 fire pumps that we have to test. To test them we hook up a bunch of hoses to the headers on the outside of the buildings and run just a shit load of water. To give you an idea, at fully open on any given building we're pumping out 2,250 gallons per minute and we run them for about 15-20 minutes. And when we do this a gigantic, diesel powered generator kicks in to keep the water pressure high enough to reach the top of the building.
Ok, so all last week, yesterday, and today we've been doing these annual inspections. This afternoon we were at Wilder Tower, the tallest building on campus. The generator on this sucker looks like a train engine and pump is about the same size. These suckers are MASSIVE. So John and I were outside doing our flow tests, and Jake (another guy from SimplexGrinnell) and Ellis (our friendly city fire marshal) were in the basement running the pump and the generator. John and I finish with our pump tests and we hear the generator start to kick in. It turns over, and turns over, and turns over... and then we hear this, "BANG!!" And John and I look at each other, and I say, "What the fuck was that?" Then we hear Jake over the radio, "A battery exploded! Ellis is hit!" So we shut off our water and run down there. One of the massive, heavy duty batteries that turn over the generator had just mysteriously exploded. Pieces of plastic and battery acid were everywhere. Ellis had gotten hit in the leg with large piece of debris and was limping around. Thankfully he didn't get any battery acid on him, but we sent him home anyway to change and clean off just in case. Minutes later we had every higher up from Physical Plant down there. Jim from electronics told me there wasn't anything wrong with the wiring for the battery, and that it was just a fluke accident. Nothing could have been done to prevent this from happening.
Now, what has me kind of shaken up is that minutes before this happened I had been down in the basement. I had just five minutes earlier walked back upstairs when this happened, and for no real reason! And this was a big explosion. It took Jake over an hour to get his hearing back to 100%. We could feel the explosion all the way upstairs and outside. If Ellis or myself had been standing right in front of the battery when it blew it very easily could have been lethal. Now this is the first potentially deadly on the job accident that I've ever experienced, and it's gotten me a little traumatized. If the situation had just been a little different, I could be in the ER right now, or worse.
I'm not really sure what to think about all this. I need a beer.
-CJ
So part of my job is that once a quarter I have to inspect the sprinkler systems in all the buildings on campus with John, our representative from SinglexGrinnell, who is the company that installed most of the sprinkler systems. It's a complicated process and I won't go into it, but once a year we have to do the annual inspection, which is even more complicated. During the annual we have to do our normal quarterly inspection, plus we have to test the fire pumps. The fire pumps reside in the basements of the largest buildings on campus. Total there are 9 fire pumps that we have to test. To test them we hook up a bunch of hoses to the headers on the outside of the buildings and run just a shit load of water. To give you an idea, at fully open on any given building we're pumping out 2,250 gallons per minute and we run them for about 15-20 minutes. And when we do this a gigantic, diesel powered generator kicks in to keep the water pressure high enough to reach the top of the building.
Ok, so all last week, yesterday, and today we've been doing these annual inspections. This afternoon we were at Wilder Tower, the tallest building on campus. The generator on this sucker looks like a train engine and pump is about the same size. These suckers are MASSIVE. So John and I were outside doing our flow tests, and Jake (another guy from SimplexGrinnell) and Ellis (our friendly city fire marshal) were in the basement running the pump and the generator. John and I finish with our pump tests and we hear the generator start to kick in. It turns over, and turns over, and turns over... and then we hear this, "BANG!!" And John and I look at each other, and I say, "What the fuck was that?" Then we hear Jake over the radio, "A battery exploded! Ellis is hit!" So we shut off our water and run down there. One of the massive, heavy duty batteries that turn over the generator had just mysteriously exploded. Pieces of plastic and battery acid were everywhere. Ellis had gotten hit in the leg with large piece of debris and was limping around. Thankfully he didn't get any battery acid on him, but we sent him home anyway to change and clean off just in case. Minutes later we had every higher up from Physical Plant down there. Jim from electronics told me there wasn't anything wrong with the wiring for the battery, and that it was just a fluke accident. Nothing could have been done to prevent this from happening.
Now, what has me kind of shaken up is that minutes before this happened I had been down in the basement. I had just five minutes earlier walked back upstairs when this happened, and for no real reason! And this was a big explosion. It took Jake over an hour to get his hearing back to 100%. We could feel the explosion all the way upstairs and outside. If Ellis or myself had been standing right in front of the battery when it blew it very easily could have been lethal. Now this is the first potentially deadly on the job accident that I've ever experienced, and it's gotten me a little traumatized. If the situation had just been a little different, I could be in the ER right now, or worse.
I'm not really sure what to think about all this. I need a beer.
-CJ