20.08.2012

Harness proves a life saver in Michigan

A man’s harness saved his life on Sunday when his boom lift went over in the town of Grand Haven, Michigan.

Gregory VanCleave was employed by Fish Window Cleaning to clean the windows of the Ottawa County Courthouse. He was working on the third floor windows, using the large articulated boom lift, when the wheels on one side began to sink into the ground. The machine overturned catapulting VanCleave from the basket as the articulation knuckle hit the ground.

Fortunately he was wearing a full harness and lanyard and was left dangling from the boom around five to six metres above the ground.

The emergency services were called and an aerial fire fighting platform was used to rescue the man. He was not injured and refused treatment at the scene. Two wrecker trucks were then brought in to upright the overturned lift – a large JLG.
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The wreckers mover in to recover the fallen boom lift

Doug Collison, owner of the local Fish Window Cleaning franchise, said: I am very relieved that the harness worked. Our employees and our customers are very valuable to us. In the seven years we have been in business, we have probably performed 50,000 cleans and we’ve never even come close to having an employee hurt.”

“We have a training program and we have weekly safety meetings. The company we rented the boom lift from will be doing an investigation to determine if the tyres of the lift sank into the ground or if they became soft.”

Vertikal Comment

Boom lifts rarely tip over and when they do it is almost always due to operator error and all too often down to ground conditions. How otherwise intelligent people can imagine that a grassed area around an old building will safely support a 10 to 15 tonne lift is a mystery.

You would think that the delivery driver dropping the machine off might say “I hope you don’t think you are taking this onto that lawn?” Or that basic training for users would stress ground conditions … almost above all other issues?

At least the man was wearing a harness, shame his lanyard was not just a little shorter so that he could have avoided dangling and the risk of suspension trauma. But at least it looks as though he escaped unhurt and once again proved the benefits of wearing a harness in a boom lift.