06.10.2009

Crane falls from barge in fatal accident

A crawler crane slipped off of the barge it was working from on Monday near Roanoke Virginia killing the operator.

The crane was working on a dock replacement project on Smith Mountain Lake when the accident happened. The operator Roger Dale Goad, 55, of Henry, was operating the crane, removing old wood piles when the crane fell into around 25 metres of water.

Rescuers took two hours to free Goad from the cab by which time it was too late. He is reported as having worked for Plyler Homes and Docks for 34 years and was fully familiar with the job he was working on.

Vertikal Comment

This is a typical application for aging small crawler cranes in the USA, the units are ideal for the job, sitting on small barges requiring little or no use of the undercarriage wth relatively light duties for the superstructure.

However the incidence of accidents such as this one are high, in the last 12 months alone we have reported on several of them and were aware of others where we could not confirm at the time if the fallen machine was a crane or an excavator.

While this work is a perfect retirement job for old cranes it is clear that contractors need to be more aware of the potential dangers and take steps to avoid such accidents.