On August 16th, 2007 Bill Giffen was involved in an Arc Flash incident with a 13,800 Volt Switch. He received 3rd degree burns to his left leg and 2nd degree burns to his arm, back and groin area.

Mr. Giffen was hospitalized in the trauma unit for 14 days where he received numerous skin grafts from skin he arc flash fusesreluctantly donated from his right thigh. During this ordeal, he of course was given morphine for the pain. After the wounds had healed enough that he no longer needed the morphine, he had to fight a new battle, withdrawal from my morphine addiction.

He lost a great deal that day based on a split second and a series of mis-steps that led to a preventable accident.

Reliabilityweb.com publisher Terrence O'Hanlon caught up with Mr. Giffen 2 weeks before his scheduled visit to IMC -2008 the 23rd International Maintenance Conference to share his story with us.