19.10.2013

Boom flips while loading

A 60ft boom lift slipped off the side of a delivery truck yesterday in Butte, Montana fatally injuring the operator, Jay Bickford, 46. A second man in the platform was injured.

It looks as though the operator had been in the process of slewing the boom through 180 degrees while on the back of the truck. He raised the base boom but while over the side the lift overturned and fell off the side of the truck. The lift, a Genie S-60, was rented from Big Sky Rental.
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The overturned lift - the trailer it fell from is in the foreground

The man was thrown out of the platform, which then came down onto the roof of a porch causing some damage. He was taken to hospital strapped up with a neck brace and back board and his condition was originally not thought to be too serious, however we now understand that he later died from complications involving his injuries.

Vertikal Comment

Loading and offloading aerial lifts - or for that many types of mobile equipment – is one of the most dangerous manoeuvres of all. And yet it is not unusual for the delivery drivers to be completely ignorant of how to safely unload or even operate the equipment they are transporting.

Those that have a little knowledge are the most dangerous, in that they will unload the machines, and often stubbornly refuse to wear a harness, in spite of all the evidence pointing to a high number of injuries - such as broken ribs - caused by the operators being bounced out, or partially out, of the platform while unloading.

All too often incidents like this one are fatal - as this one has sadly now proven to be