Worker at Shell Oil’s Carson Substation Is Electrocuted

An employee of an electrical contractor working on a substation at the Shell Oil refinery in Carson was electrocuted when he came in contact with a live circuit Saturday afternoon.

Lloyd Grant, 31, collapsed about 12:40 p.m. while working on a substation panel that carries 15,000 volts, said Deputy Dean Scoville. Before losing consciousness. Grant, a Colorado resident, told colleagues at the Wilmington Avenue facility that he had received a shock.

Workers began trying to revive him with cardiopulmonary resuscitation, and county paramedics were called to the scene. Grant was taken to Harbor General Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 1:31 p.m. of cardiac arrest.

Homicide detectives were assigned to investigate the incident, but “initial indications are that it looks to be an accident,” Scoville said.

Grant was part of a team from Asea Brown Boveri, a Philadelphia-based electrical contractor hired by Shell to conduct tests on the substation. The facility has been out of service for routine maintenance since March 3, said Shell spokesman Gene Munger.

Although the substation supplies energy to the refinery’s alkylation unit, where a flash fire on Thursday caused minor injuries to two workers, Munger said the two accidents were not related.

“The circuits were being energized selectively with test equipment at the time of the incident,” Munger said. “He obviously came in contact with something somehow with very, very unfortunate results.”