01.11.2006

Wind blows crane over

Winds gusting up to 55 miles an hour caused a 200 ton Link Belt HC248 with 30metres of boom plus 50 metres of luffing jib, to overturn onto three apartment buildings on Sunday.

The incident occurred in Portland Maine in the USA, where the crane was working on placing steelwork for a new maternity wing for the city’s largest medical facility.
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The cranes jib came crashing down onto three apartment buildings

The crane was rented from a Rhode Island company by the steelwork contractor, Rose steel.

However the local press and OSHA jumped on William A. Berry & Son of Massachusetts, the General contractor, seemingly due to 2003 accident, in which a man fell to his death on a Berry site, through a lack of fall protection equipment. The company was originally fined $46,000 for that violation.

Vertikal Comment

Once again this story demonstrates how a safety violation ‘keeps on giving’ well after it has occurred.
These days it seems that the first thing the local press do is check if a contractor has had any citations or fines etc. If it has then it is judged as ‘probably guilty’ in the headlines... and when the true facts emerge they are rarely published.

Just one more reason why sensible safe practices are so important.