An accident victim tells his own story

An Australian Exhibitions and Conferences product story

Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team Sep 13, 2005

Anton Guinea was a young man having an ordinary day at work until, in an instant, his life changed forever: "It happened to me, it could happen to you - how to live life after cheating death".

Based on his own recovery, Anton Guinea has developed a recovery program to assist accident victims and their supporters, families, friends and colleagues.

Anton will present his story and program at The Safety Conference sponsored by WorkCover NSW, which runs from October 26-28 at the Sydney Showground and is hosted by the Safety Institute of Australia.

Here, he tells his story of survival, recovery and the silver lining to his near-death experience.

Aged 21, I had recently completed an apprenticeship as an electrician and was still living with my parents in my hometown of Gladstone, Queensland.

My zest for life was high, I had met a lovely lady, Julie, and things could not have been better.

I was indestructible, or so I thought.

Then, one Tuesday morning, at about 9.30am, I was working on a switchboard that blew up in my face.

The job was straightforward enough - an electrical worker and I were mounting an overload in a switchboard.

After isolating the board and completing the permit to work, I started measuring the mounting place for the overload.

I chose a steel ruler.

While I was measuring, the thin steel ruler slid into a tiny gap between the housing of the main switch and the back plate of the switchboard and contacted the live side of the main switch terminals.

In milliseconds, a massive flash exploded from the switchboard and I was blown backwards across the floor of the switch room as the current surged through my body.

My face, neck, arms and hands were badly burnt.

In fact, about 12 per cent of my body was affected and, as I tried to lift myself up from the floor, the skin on the palm of my right hand peeled off.

On my way to the site nurse's station, the shock gave way to pain.

Serious burns are among the most painful of injuries, they feel horrific and medical science can do very little to relieve the pain.

Looking back, the accident had physical, potential and mental impacts.

The physical ones were obvious.

It took the better part of a month for the very painful burns to heal enough for me to be released from the Burns Unit in Brisbane.

My hands looked like a swollen, blotchy melted spacesuit three days after the accident.

So did my face.

The 'potential' impacts were the most frightening.

Potentially, my life could have ended in that switch room.

I was lucky not to be killed or to lose my sight - thankfully, I was wearing safety glasses.

The mental impacts were perhaps the most devastating.

I was so frightened of switchboards, I wanted to change careers before I had spent even one day working as an electrician.

My physical injuries healed, my family was thankful that I was alive, but I still had to face what had happened and return to work.

Based on his own recovery, Anton Guinea has developed a recovery program to assist accident victims and their supporters, families, friends and colleagues, which he will present at The Safety Conference.

Sponsored by WorkCover NSW and hosted by the Safety Institute of Australia, the conference runs from October 26-28 at the Sydney Showground and Anton will donate $1 to the Brisbane Burns Unit for every delegate.