Google data center has electrical explosion, causing injuries

I think that its a really common subset of the human condition for otherwise smart people to think "doesn't apply to me" and "won't happen to me" and "never happened to me before" are more than just confirmation bias to "oh. it just happened"

A lot of the reddit "look at this funny electrical explosion ha ha ha" posts get qualified EE saying "this was not avoidable and they needed the PPE" or "this is way worse than it needed to be" or "they were stunningly lucky to escape" or "yea, you don't know the end outcome: they died of the burns"

Part of the problem is that some of the PPE is really unwieldy and I think people don't "like" using it because of how restricting it is to be fully suited up. Bad move.

I remember talking to an EE doing maintenance work on a Digital Equipment DEC-10 power supply room in 1980s. He removed wedding rings, watches, had plastic glasses, to even just go into the room. he was super, super paranoid about being within distance of the cabs, and always had the operations staff around when he went in. Totally not cavalier. I totally didn't "get it" at first, but after I saw what the room looked like (bare bus bars) I decided I never wanted to do power electrics, ever.

Some days just working behind normal 220v inputs to the rack of our machineroom in an SME (5 racks, raised floor, Liebert units and a 20KVA UPS) I wonder how many people know I'm inside this confined space, room with thick doors, noisy: I doubt they'd hear me fall, or cry out.

It's far too easy to allow "it hasn't happened yet" to lull you into a false sense of security.

I watched a Cray-1 400hz re-generator fuse explode in a machine room once, when the Cray installer technician said "oh, its jammed, let me just push this with a screwdri..."

He had a pretty good reset on OHS, we all were a bit stunned how close it came to an inquest.