1. Introduction

What is important in technical fields is definitely safety. Companies usually take the issue of occupational health and safety (OHS) very seriously because it is much easier and less expensive to take safety precautions than to deal with accidents resulting in severe injuries or even fatalities. However, although safety officers try to do their best to prevent these incidents, electrical accidents occur very often. Most of them happen during routine maintenance or troubleshooting and are caused by human errors and carelessness. Some workers simply seem to forget that although electricity is a great convenience, it can also be dangerous and must be treated respectfully.

Even the authors of your textbook pay great attention to the topic of safety. Unit 10a will give you an opportunity to revise grammatical structures used to describe an accident. You will also revise question forms because questions are an integral part of incident investigation.

 

Contents:

  • Revision: Past Continuous tense for describing actions in progress:

At 7 o´clock, the worker was doing regular maintenance work.

  • Revision: Past Continuous tense for talking about actions occurring simultaneously:

As he was digging a hole using a pneumatic breaker, his co-workers were standing nearby.

As he was digging a hole using a pneumatic breaker, he hit an underground cable.

  • Revision: Past Simple tense for past events that did not take time:

As he was digging a hole using a pneumatic breaker, he hit an underground cable.

  • Revision: Past Simple tense for consequent actions:

When his co-workers saw the accident, they called for an ambulance.