20.10.2011

Man saved after crush

A man’s life was saved yesterday after an overhead crushing incident while using a boom lift in Melbourne Australia to clear asbestos.

The man, 49, was operating the lift at a factory in Altona North, west of Melbourne, when he inadvertently operated the lift into a position that crushed him between the platform and a steel beam overhead.

The man's work colleagues managed to bring him to the ground and were performing CPR on him, when the emergency crews arrived. The man had suffered a collapsed lung so the paramedics inserted a needle into his chest clear trapped air and blood in his chest cavity in order that his lungs could re-inflate. The combined intervention was successful and the man is now in hospital in a critical but stable state.