22.04.2012

A greasy boom

Spotted a few weeks ago by a reader in Florida, two men working a street lamp from the boom of a crane.

We understand that the men – and three are directly involved, work for a well-known electrical company in area. The weather conditions on the day were wind of five to 10 mile an hour, dry and sunny.

One man is operating the unit, while two have walked out onto the extended and greased boom section to install a new light fixture at a height of around nine metres. They are working directly over a fire hydrant on a busy street corner. They do though have a couple of cones in place.
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A definite Death Wish in Florida - three men and not a bit of common sense in sight

They do have hard hats on and one even has a hi-vis vest – I’ll bet they have safety boots too, yet with all that concern for hitting their heads they clearly lack any understanding of the concept of falling.

Our reader tells us that the equipment in the background is not connected with our Death Wish team, and was a different company on a different project.

The dangers here do need spelling out, the risks of serious injury or death are as high as they get.
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The two men working from the end of the end of the greased boom

Vertikal Comment

This example also raises and issue over the commitment to safety from some utility companies – at least in certain states of the USA?

Recently we have seen some vociferous and justified comments on the safety practices of the wind turbine industry, from crane companies that work in the sector, given some recent reports on employee electrocutions and examples such as this – perhaps some utility companies need to focus on their working at height training and policies?