Power Cut

It is Sunday evening and I have worked another weekend on my daughter's house. It is getting very close to completion and I know from past projects that it is the time when you start to rush things.

This weekend I have been running new pipework for the heating and the kitchen and sorting out some of the electrics. Stephen, my daughter's boyfriend, has been helping me and has proved to be an invaluable assistant. I was keen from the start to make sure he is fully involved so he is not just a labourer.

On Saturday afternoon we were tidying up some of the dog's breakfast of wiring under the floorboards. There were old rubber cables going to nowhere and other newer cable not now needed. The place had been rewired by a firm that specialises in doing rewires in a day. the upstairs and downstairs were both on one circuit and the whole lot went into a junction box in the hall. "Really I would like to strip it all out and start again" I told him.

I pulled on one of the redundant cables to identify it and asked him to grab the other end.

"Is it this one? he asked.

"If that is the one that is moving yes" I replied.

"OK cut that" I said.

"Are you sure?" He asked.

"Yes" .

"The one with the junction box on it?"

"Yes that's it, cut it"

There was a flash and a bang, a great chunk was blown out of the cutters and he sat there looking at me. It looked as if there was smoke coming out of his mouth. His knuckles were burnt black and he didn't say a word. He just looked at me. In my head I was filling in the gaps with my own swear words. I didn't even say sorry. I just looked at him and suddenly he got up and ran down stairs into the garden. He hadn't received an electric shock but he was in shock.

I continued to sit there, re-running the sequence of events in my head.
What had I done? Me the bloke who has been dishing out DIY and building advice for years, me who tells everyone to take care and turn off the power. As I have said elsewhere on this site the second after an accident happens you know exactly what you should have done.

If he had been seriously hurt or died I would have rerun that event in my head for the rest of my life and never been able to look my daughter in the eye again. I had been an idiot, I am still an idiot. He had trusted me and I had let him down, big time. When he asked if I was sure I said yes but I wasn't sure, I couldn't have been sure.
I gave him a hug and apologised. I was very, very glad that he wasn't badly hurt but he shouldn't have been hurt at all.

When I woke up this morning it was the first thought to enter my head. You know something is bad when that happens. I have re-run it countless times and, as with all mistakes you try to square it so it isn't your fault but I can't square it. This was my fault and there is no dodging that.

He is O.K so I can move forward and learn from it. He doesn't have to turn up every weekend for this torture. I need to take better care of him, as much care of him as I do of my own children. I discovered on Saturday morning that I had failed to do that and I also found out that he means a lot more to me than I realised.