08.02.2011

Another tree accident

A crane tipped over in Lake Mary, Florida yesterday and crashed into nearby commercial buildings while lifting a tree.

Local reports say that the crane, a 30 ton Tadano Rough Terrain owned by Sun State Tree Services, was hooked up to the tree which was then cut at the base by one of the companys staff.

It seems that tree which then tipped towards the building pulling the crane over. The cranes boom struck the top of the building ripping out a number of overhead electrical cables as it went over. The tree crashed into a second floor window.
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The scene after the accident

Fortunately no one was seriously hurt. The crane operator drove himself to a local medical centre for treatment. The crane was uprighted overnight.

There were suggestions that strong winds of up to 61 MPH, recorded a couple of hours earlier, might have been to blame. However the emergency services said it was more down to some form of overloading.

Vertikal Comment

As we have said before trees are a risky load when being cut. In this case the crane was well set up with outriggers fully extended. The cause look more like a case of the tree being allowed to tilt adding a dynamic loading and increasing the load radius.

The moral of the story? Specify a much bigger crane than you need and don’t try and take the whole tree in one go.