A tower crane operator had an extremely lucky escape yesterday, after her crane came down in strong winds in the town of Dubbo, north west of Sydney in New South Wales, Australia. While clearly played a major role, her calm, collected and intelligent thinking was also a significant factor.
The crane initially lost its jib as winds of 115kph and higher lashed the area, along with a sandstorm.
The jib was the first to go
The jib hung suspended by its pendants for a while before dropping onto the building, a high rise residential property. As the winds continued, the combination of a crane out of balance, and the jib acting like a wind sail pulled the cab and back mast off at the slew ring. The tower miraculously remained upright after having swung back and forth in the Melee.
The operator exited her cab shortly before it broke free and was thrown into the building
The tower kept calm after losing her jib, put on her rucksack, and began climbing down the wavering tower. She reached the safety of the building’s roof below and was reported to have only suffered minor injuries – cuts and scrapes.
The scene the following day The videos below only shows a little more from the incident.
Vertikal Comment
The way this operator acted under pressure was exemplary, and as a result, she is alive and unhurt today. She was also lucky in that the tower did not crash to the ground as she climbed down, and the back mast/cab did not go at the same time as the jib. But hats off' to her example.
One has to wonder, though, what she was still doing in the cab, with the wind at 32 metres a second! Was this extreme wind not forecast? Dubbo is a fair way inland, so surely there were warnings? You would have thought that the site manager would have shut the cranes down and weather-vaned them until the storm had passed?
It will be interesting to see the report when it comes out.
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