A five axle crane overturned onto a van in the small town of Kiryas Joel to the north of New York city, on the edge of the town of Monroe in New York state.
When the emergency services arrived, they found the crane operator trapped in his cab and quickly moved to help him exit the cab. He was treated at the scene for minor injuries. The boom, was fully elevated with one section telescoped, with outriggers partially extended and no counterweight installed. It looks as though it was either preparing to install its counterweight or had possibly just removed it. Whatever, the crane verturned and the boom came down onto a van ‘writing it off’ or ‘Totalling it’ if you prefer. Thankfully no one was inside the vehicle at the time.
Thankfully no one was in the van at the time
The crane, owned by New York city based US Crane as mentioned above was jeither setting up or preparing to leave when something went wrong, it looks like it might have involved the front right side outrigger jack or cribbing, from what we have seen in video clips, but it is hard to tell. We will update this item as more information comes in .
The front right outrigger apparently played a part in the overturn
State police said that two other people suffered minor injuries and were taken to hospital, while the local fire chief Yossi Blumenthal added: “The operator was very lucky given the size of the crane and the nature of the collapse, this could have ended much differently. I’m proud of how quickly and safely our firefighters responded.”
Blumenthal added that crews remained on site for over 12 hours due to the complexity of the recovery. Firefighters faced multiple high risk conditions, including crane instability, a secondary collpase and leaks of Hydraulic fluid and diesel fuel which has created an environmental issues and fire hazards.”
The news bulletin below has some good footage of the incident scene
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