Lucky escape: electrician finally making circuit safe (4,5)
I believe the answer is:
near thing
'lucky escape' is the definition.
(situation which nearly ended badly)
'electrician finally making circuit safe' is the wordplay.
'finally' indicates one should take the final letters.
'making circuit safe' becomes 'earthing' (as in earthing an electrical device).
The final letter of 'electrician' is 'n'.
'n'+'earthing'='NEAR THING'
(Other definitions for near thing that I've seen before include "Knife-edge event" , "almost an accident" , "Almost a nasty incident" , "Something that barely avoids failure or disaster" , "Close call" .)