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What Happens When It All Fails!!!
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Posted by T_Bone on April 23, 2002 at 17:11:12 from (207.173.149.181):
Hi All, I was reading the post "Will I get into Trouble" and it brought back memories from many moons ago that I thought you might enjoy reading. I was working on a large Junior high school with 13 buildings total in Denver, Co. Were setting very large A/C units, 11000 to 52,000lbs, on the roof. We needed to sit a unit 120ft into a building at closest access weighing 11,000 lbs. Yep the small one. I'm using a crew of 3 tinners and 2 pipefitters. It plays a part just wait!
Were using a 250 ton Manitwoc crane at $450/hr, very expensive for the time period. I go over and ask the crane orperator and oiler if we can help build boom. Main boom is 5ft square with total stick required of 380ft to set this unit. 5ft main boom is a bare to build and very time consumming and the pendant lines are 2" round wire cable and were using a cherry picker crane (small hydro crane) to help build stick. Crane orperator declined my offer, one thing led to another, my boss talked with his boss, and were "all" now building main boom. Out comes the crane owner and were now going to put in 200ft of main boom and use 180ft of 2ft square jib boom. Jib boom builds faster. My boss is smiling ear to ear at $450/hr. Original plan called for 300ft main boom with 80ft of jib boom. Main lifting line is 1-1/2" in diameter with a 4 ton headache ball. The headache ball keeps the main line straight when theres no load attached. Stick is built in four days of bust a$$ sweat. We head to the set site. Set site is blind to the crane orperator, orperator can't see his load as he moves the load into place and sits it down. So I take one tinner and put him on the tag line, tag line is a rope attached to the unit for some ground control, tell one pipefitter to give hand signals at the unit site with another pipefitter to grab the tag line as we have to move over a 6ft parepit wall.
I'm sitting between the main boom on the wall above the crane orperator giving him hand signals wearing ear plugs because of the diesel engine wind up. We start the lift. I get the unit picked and swing over the roof of the building I'm on and dog the load, tell the crane orperator to dead stop, engine off. As the load is swinging 10ft on either side of this 5ft main boom, the jib boom is flexing something terrible. I ask the crane orperator(CO) if he sees whats going on, says he can't cause the main boom is too wide, so I says step outa the cab. He watchs it swing and gets into the cab. WE have a talk, I says I don't like what I see, He says his boss/owner has never been wrong on what weight of stick can handle. So back to setting the unit. I caution all envolved to not to get under this load in any way shape or form. I giving the CO boom down and hold the load level. He can't see his load so he's over correcting holding the load level, picks the load too high and lets the load go to low. We get to the parepit wall and the pipefitter gives me boom down but I shake that off and stop the load, lower the load to the roof, then continue boom down and hold the load.
The pipefitter is furious with me for not taking his hand signal. The other pipefitter won't crab the tag line. I send the other tinner to the low roof to catch the tag line but warn him not to get between the load and the wall. This tinner is a apprentice. I now have the load about 50ft from the wall and the signaling pipefitter does a chin-up on the unit frame I beam. Bored from me not talking his hand signals. As he steps back from his chin-up all he11 breaks loose. The unit hits the roof, the headache ball goes threw the top of the unit, the force of the unit hitting the roof knocks the apprentice on the tag line to the roof deck, at the same time the slack in the main line makes a loop swinging over the top where the apprentice was standing hitting the bricks on the wall face busting the bricks. Then the main line loop starts back towards the unit and the two pipefitters take off running toward where theres two skylites with scafolding, and just as they run inbetween the scafolding the main line hits the scafolding colasping the scafold but stoped the main line from hitting the pipefitters in the back. I look up just as the broken jib boom starts to come down. I see about 80ft of jib boom twisted and pendant lines snaping so I jump off the roof into a sand pile on the ground and head for under the crane. Remember those were 2" wire cable pendant lines that were snaping. Noise stops so I take a peak out from under the crane. Broken Jib is held by one pendant line swinging in the air. I look into the cab and the CO is not there. I climb back on the roof and check on the apprentice. He's fine laying on the roof deck just scared. Tell him not to leave the roof and just sit there. I check on the two pipefitters. Both are huddled together between the skylights but are ok. On second thought I move the apprentice just incase the jib falls. I'm on my way to the job office to call the boss and met the CO, says he's going on two weeks vacation and he can't talk with no one. That broken crane jib was off the job site by 4:30 that night! There was no safety, OSHA or state inspection ever preformed after the accident. Hmmmmm The only man we lost was a first day plumber apprentice working directly under where the unit hit the roof. He didn't get hurt, He quit the trade his very first day at work. Probably a wise choice! Theres a second part to this little story if anyone wants to hear it. My Point? How long did this all take to happen, maybe 10secs? Alls I know it seamed like forever when I was sitin on that wall under that crane boom watching it all unfold. It don't take long to make a fatal mistake!!! T_Bone
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