crane accidents

[mometal77]

I might have posted this before.  But i found another good site and i thought it belonged here.
www.craneoperator.com
with this one there is a graphic section container falling on a man aftermath of a load on an operaotor.  But there is also downloadable short clips of actual crane accidents.
www.craneaccidents.com
Go to achives some free pictures

bobby

[UNCLEBUCK]

 My dad has seen quite a few crane accidents in his lifetime , all tires exploding at once on 200 tonners , total tip overs etc..  I asked what happens to the operators and he said if they live they are instantly fired .   I drove a little 6 ton bantam around the farm when I was a teenager and it had no outriggers and rubber tired duals and I got dings and dents in dang near every building on the farm from that pile of junk . Very scary feeling in the seat of your pants when you feel that leaning starting to instantly happen . I seen a old man sitting in his pickup about a mile away from his home , sittin there eating a sandwich waiting for his dragline to come across the field . That looked crazy until I asked him to give me a crash course in running a dragline so the 80 some year old man had me stand behind his seat and boy did he give me show , he was like a crane operator in alaska most of his life and it was like a ride on the tilt-a-whirl . I am sure he chuckled after I got off because I was white as a ghost .  I wish I would have went to a certified 49'er training school because crane operators make real good money and without that ticket in your wallet I am just a joke to most .

[mometal77]

Well in the states its called CCO training and in Canada it is called a red card.  Some states require this CCO some dont.  Some old timers refuse to get certified.  I have worked with guys that could only run hydraulic cranes.  Some have taken the written test for friction crane and couldnt run the dang g things in real life.  Kinda funny with the way paperwork is and tests lol.  I bought a 25 ton 200series with a one yard dragline.  You think a dragline is hard.. try picking logs up with a clam bucket lol.  My dad is a retired operator  collecting his pension in the states from the union.. Canadians call it double dipping while he is running cranes in British columbia.  See in the states your only allowed if retired to work 50hrs a month anything over you forefeit your check for that month.   Father son union up in canada local 115 in vancover.   Plus when working with people its not a chicken fight to work. or a composite crew.  Up there they have a good work ethic on just getting the job done. And no real bs.  And the companies are very nice.  One problem though with any old time operators on the jobs up there.  They wont teach the apprentices/trainees how to run a crane.  They have this book where you need 2000 seat hours.  I have been around some scary operators.  As soon as you think you are god on a piece of equipment all your hind sight goes down the pooper shoot and people get hurt or killed ... funny how you said if they lived they would be fired.  I have known some that got away with hitting guys with a block on a crane and got away with it.  Bad operators out there just stay clear lol.. or walk off the job.. have done that a few times..  Dont care what they pay.. My rule i go home alive.  In one of the sites you can see where the guy was sinking in the gravel and didnt put down the boom..  He should have had steel plates under the soft soil at first lol.  This is a classic way of someone not knowing what they where doing.  I like the one in europe i think it was where one boom truck after the other tried pulling out a car and went into the salt chuch lol.. Btw I have a lot of pictures i would love to put up but just have dial up.  Maybe some day when I get around to it.. Already have pics of a small hydro plant.
bob

[Dan_Shade]

I used to work for Grove Manlift, we got a lawyer talk once a year or so on crane/aerial platform accidents and the inevitable lawsuits that follow.

I came to the conclusion that many of the accidents are like logging accidents, completely avoidable if the operator had been paying attention.

[Sanford]

I've been working on cranes for a dealer for 16 years, and the one thing I have found out about crane accidents in general is that common sense isn't that common !!! The most common line is " the computer said I could " thats when I tell them it isn't any smarter than the person using it-it isn't supposed to replace common sense.( It even says that in the operators manual)

[pigman]

Saturday I got to tour a major crane manufacture's facility. 8) My son works for them and he invited me to their openhouse and picnic. It was interesting to see all the manufacturing processes that it takes to build those things.
He is working on the prototype of a new model and he told of all the problems of getting everything correct before they put the model in production. I did not realize the amount of censors and electronics on modern cranes.
Bob

[UNCLEBUCK]

I bet that was a interesting tour from your son pigman .  All I have ever sat in is junk .   Your son must be into robotics?

That would be a interesting job Sanford.  One of my dads closest friends was head of the 49'ers in Minneapolis and he strung tower cranes , walking all over them like a sure footed cat . Him and my dad send Christmas cards to each other every year complaining how beat up there bodies are so they cant enjoy retirement. Last Christmas my dad didnt get a card from his friend , found out that he and his wife were killed by a drunk driver crossing over the median . After all those years of walking out on tower cranes .  Life sure can be a puzzle huh  :

Mometal I have dial up and I can put up a whack of pictures here in less than 5 minutes so dont give up with the photos ok

[pigman]

UNCLEBUCK, my son is into the designing and testing of the cranes not the actual manufacturing.    He says the most fun part of the job is operating a new prototype . 8)

[Sanford]

Uncle buck- Life realy can be a  puzzle, that's for sure. The job is definately interesting without any doubt. I work pretty close with the design engineers on the new model cranes. I give them the feedback to make production changes when the original design needs a little help. This type of work is very hard on the body, which is creating a  problem with new people wanting to do this type of work. It seems everybody wants to make the bucks without getting dirty or having the responcibility of doing it right the first time. Five years from now crane mechanics that can work on the old stuff as well as the new will be few and the ones that you find will be spread real thin as far as getting to you when you need them. Computers and open gear grease- what a way to make a living!!   Sanford

[etat]

Not exactly a crane but I just before I came to CT finished a house in Oxford that I put a hundred and forty squares of Certainteed Shangles on.   They weigh over four hundred pounds per square, five bundles to a square.  This particular house there couldn't be a ladder or ladervator leaned against the house due to the archetural molding.  All the way around we had to start the shingles off of scaffolds.   On  this house was seven dormers, three chimneys, and over five hundred feet of open copper valley. 

I insisted on having one of them fork lifts with a cherry picker type boom on the job to get the shingles on the roof.  We had our choice of using the forklifts, a cage, or we could also attach a bucket to it.   Mostly on the roof we used the cage.  Sometimes when cleaning up we'd swap to the bucket.   It' boom out and up about sixty feet or so if I was guessing.  I personally know of two accidents with these that have gotten people killed, and I knew my daughter who is out of college for the summer was going to be in the cage.  I wouldn't let anybody else drive it besides me because I didn't trust anybody else.   We'd load five or six squares of shingles in it at a time and I'd put the feet down and extend the boom just over where we were working and she'd hand us shingles.   As we'd move up and toeboard the next section (the whole house was on a 12 12 or better pitch) I'd work my way around to a window somewhere and go back down and move the cage up as I would extend it out more. 

We spent three weeks on this roof and Jennifer said riding in that cage was better than riding a ride at the fairgrounds.......... 

The two accidents that resulted in deaths was one operator on a truck stop that was being built a few years ago ran the boom into some power lines while moving some steel.  The other accident was on a church, also a few years ago.   The operator started to move the machine with people in the cage and without retracting the boom, and without having a spotter on the ground.   All no no's.   There's ZERO vision off to the immediate  right  rear due to the boom.  When he backed up he ran up on a sand pile and tipped the machine over.   

Yep, with my daughter in that cage wasn't NOBODY driving it but ME.  I never moved that cage  a inch with her in it without the thing in park, the emergency brake activated, and with the feet down and braced off, and I never moved it a inch without a spotter helping me watch and keep a eye on everything. 

[Sanford]

ctate-  Your post just proves what I said earlier in the thread, common sense will get you through alot of situations. Oh, and by the way, I definately agree with your line about getting older is starting to hurt!  Sanford

[DanG]

I witnessed a crane accident once, and it was a scary thing.  Back in 1965, there was a big train wreck just south of Cocoa Fl, right beside US 1.  The wreck spilled out onto the highway and there were a couple of boxcars laying in the median.  Luckily, it happened in the middle of the night, and nobody was injured.

Anyway there were a couple of locomotives that were in the middle of the train and they were buried under the other cars.  They brought in cranes from everywhere and started the cleanup, and crowds of people came out to watch.  The Highway Patrol roped of a "peanut gallery" and even made a temporary parking lot to handle the crowds.  I was in the crowd. ;D 8)

They had attached 2 good sized truck cranes to one of those engines and tried to lift it out.  Now this was before the days of the hydraulic cranes with the squirt booms, so I don't have a clue what the ratings might have been on these machines.  I only know that it wasn't enough.  They had to lift the locomotive up pretty high to clear the wreckage.  They got it up maybe 20 feet when the cable on one of the cranes broke.  The other, larger crane reared up on its hind legs and went almost vertical, then came crashing back down onto the outriggers.  The truck part of the rig stopped there, but 2 things kept right on going; the boom, and that huge counterweight on the front bumper.  The boom came all the way over and seperated from the truck, then landed atop the pile of boxcars in the highway, and the broken cable snapped like a bullwhip.  The counterweight/bumper sheared off of the truck and buried itself about 2 feet into the concrete roadway!

Now what impressed me the most, was the one guy that was in the way of all this.  One of the workers was walking by in front of the crane when it happened.  He had to be the quickest of the quick thinkers.  He instantly dived under the truck while it was reared way up, and just lay there near the rear axles.  When everything finished falling, he crawled out and walked away without a scratch.  I'm thinkin' he looked a little pale, though. :D :D :D  The crane operator weren't looking all that peppy when he got out of his cab, either.

[PineNut]

A couple of years ago they were building a new bridge near here. When putting down posts, they decided it would be convenient to put the crane on the old bridge. Only problem, the bridge had previously been posted at 8000 pounds --- for a good reason. See my gallery for the result. The excavator (not visible in the photo) a man had been working in was crushed.  He made a successful leap just before the boom crushed the cab. Fortunately there were no injuries.

The whole construction project was a comedy of errors and the company went belly up prior to finishing the job.

[Gilman]

[UNCLEBUCK]

A man in town last week works for the highway department , setting concrete culverts and he stands between the massive culverts as they are placed in a staging area on the ground for later use, crane operator sets culvert down , man in town walks between 2 culverts,crane operator walks out of cab and a loop on his belt catches lever,culvert swings into other culvert and crushes man, ambulance shortly arrives, airlift waiting at hospital , removal of some internals and man lives because doctors said he was a body builder and thats the only reason he is alive . Crane operator should have locked the boom .

[sawguy21]

My cousin was killed in a construction accident a couple of years ago. Apparently, he and the surveyor went into the excavation to do a couple more shots at the end of the day. The excavator operator did not see them and swung the machine pinning Ken against the wall. They did not let the crew know where they were going and the operator did not account for everyone.  :(

[UNCLEBUCK]

Thats a sad one for sure .

After reading DanG's crane catastrophe I think I am going to swing my pile of junk out and away from me , right now its directly above me where I saw . Dont think my orange helmet would be of much help if that baby ever decided to drop.

Sounds like crane accidents occur just like pilot error dont they .

[submarinesailor]

I remember one time about 25 years ago, we had finished a very long submerged patrol, 84 days under the waves, and while we were tying-up to the submarine tender, we had a crane accident.  I still remember exacting what I was doing, the sounds and all the other stuff.  Two of my good friends, nuc electricians, were working on bring connecting shore power so we could shut the reactor down.  I was about 80' forward of them, working on getting the missile deck ready to offload weapons the next morning. When I heard a metal to metal thump behind me that didn't quite sound right.  Turning around, I saw the crane operator had bumped the shore power boom with a pallet loaded with 4-55 gallon drums of turbine oil and they were failing off the pallet.  Falling towards my shipmates/friends!!!!! They were looking down into the engine room escape hatch and not looking up. These drum instantly killed both of them.  Still, to this day I wish I had been looking the other way, as I will never forget the sights and sounds of that moment. 

The crane operator was sitting in the crane laughing at what had just happened.  I can honestly say I lost it, went into a blind rage and went running up into the tender, headed for the upper deck and that @#$%^& crane operator.  By the time I reached the crane area, someone from my crew had already pulled him from the crane, had him on the deck and was kicking him in the face-with steel toed shoes.  The climb up had taken the edge off my anger and as a Chief Petty Officer; it was my job to stop and get things under control.  Good thing I did, that was one very big, *pithed off cook who was doing the kicking and the operator's face was a mess.

Just after I got things under control the Master at Arms force showed up, the Chief Master at Arms took one look and asked me what happened.  I told him the operator "fell down" when he got out of the crane.  He looked at me kinda funny, but I turned around, walked away and getting the cook by the arm, leading him away and back to the boat. We left Kingsbay 4 days later, just in time to bury our friends.

The next time we went to Kingsbay, for the start of our next patrol, we found out the operator had tested positive for 4 different types of illegal drugs.  This is one of the very big reasons, I went out of my way to catch all the dopers in the Navy that I could.  Last I heard, the operator was doing "hard time" in the military detention facility at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Life, with no parole - still way too good for him.

BTW – the cook and I did not get charged for the operator "falling down".

Bruce/subsailor