03.04.2020

Harness saves tree worker

A tree care worker was escaped serious injury or death yesterday after his truck mounted aerial lift/bucket truck was struck by the boom of an overturning boom truck

The man was trimming trees at a home in Beloit, Wisconsin – south west of Milwaukee - and working from the bucket of an Altec truck mounted lift, owned by local company Tree Wise Men. The limbs of a White Pine were being lifted down by a boom truck working over the top of the platform. When it lost stability, due to a strong gust of wind catching the tree section, extending the radius and causing the platform to overturn, the crane boom came down on to the platform's boom, with the resulting shock loading causing the entire superstructure of the platform to separate at the slew ring and drop onto the roof of the home. The tree worker remained in the platform thanks to his harness, which probably saved his life.
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The scene shortly after the emergency services arrived

A large wrecker truck was brought in to recover both the boom truck - an old Sterling, and the platform.
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The recovery gets underway

A thank you to craniac 1 for finding and providing updated information on this incident, which had not been published at the time we reported. We used the initial police reports, which are usually accurate and which appeared to be corroborated by the tip off we received. Although in hindsight, there were some inconsistencies in the police report, which we put down to a poor command of terminology - assuming that it was the classic use of 'crane' for anything with a boom.