Anyone on here have any close call stories? The subject is kind of fresh in my mind as I just had a good one. Im working in the blind, 60 ton grove rt, on a bridge job. Had laborers hook me up to the bidwell to fly it down. Even after I say, keep me boomed up where it looks underboomed to compensate for deflection. They had it overboomed, so when they touched me up that bidwell went into live traffic. Thankfully no cars were comming.
Holy swinging load Batman! Yeah, that would scare the bejesus out of ya! Your best learning to judge where your load line is without depending on [crane] inexperienced hands on the ground. Keep your hook rigging above reach of the ground hogs and position your line over the center of the load, then drop your line for them to rig it. Snatch up the load, and boom up as you feel/see the deflection of the boom. The more you operate a particular rig, the more you become familiar with its tendencies.
Yeah thats easy on the ground brother. But when the only thing we see is the two-block weight when we're in the blind and below a structure, those inexperienced people can kill someone. In ten years Ive had some guys try some stupid things, Ive also held jobs up until they could give me someone who can throw me the right signals.
LoL, yup, operating a crane can get interesting at times.
Amen :beerchug
I lifted a hopper grain tank off a steel frame this summer. Calculated weight was 15,000 pounds. Rig was good for 20,000 the way we were set up. We'd sent three different bozos into the tank to make sure it was empty. Their response...."Oh it's just a little dust in it stuck to the walls" Winching up the computer showed we passed the calculated 15K weight. Not unusual. Tighten up some more, and pass the 20K capacity of the crane, and it still didn't budge. Hit the overide and got 22K on the hook. I saw one corner getting light, so, figured I had it. Then, we had to cut the columns out from under it. Everytime we'd cut the steel column, it'd settle down where they just cut. It just didn't "feel" right, so, ran two 8,000# telehandlers over to give me some help. After we got it to the ground (14' high) we looked over into the tank and there was about 25,000 of commodity still in the tank. Talk about a pucker factor.
did the "bozos" get fired or beat with a stick?? i think they needed both
i'm not a crane operator but have been around a few close call's involving cranes,one of the in my opinion stupid moves was we were working at a hospital and one of the important people that lived across the street had talked to the genral contractor and said they wanted this huge pine tree transplanted from the hospital to his yard,so we stayed late one day and i made a pad for a 4100 manitowoc with a 963 track loader ,the moved the crane in rigged it up to the tree, we dug a big hole around the trunk and they went to lift the tree, know one knows what it weighs the crane has it's boom over a power line and so the crane begins to lift ,out comes the tree ,up off the ground comes the crane,the operator was smart enough to let the tree free fall to the ground now the boom and the cable are banging and the crane rocking,yeah the tree stayed and was choped up with the rest of them.
Must have been some tree to pull a 4100 over. Some tree or a long reach.
not a real good pad
Trees: A crane operators worst nightmare
That'll do it too.
Trees can be a pain. Power lines are what gets me on my toes.
I see you're from Da Burgh. Let me know where that crew is working so I can go a different way... Good topic though. I can think of a few, which I may have time to post tonight...
The crew in question has been some of the steady help for a company thats packing up their north eastern operations and heading south with them, off to the right to work states. So after this job finishes in a few weeks, theyll be gone. Needless to say, I wont really miss them :waving Getting into a little more detail with my little close call. Only a few feet of the bidwell went out in traffic, not the whole thing. The legs or posts hit the barrier. However, if the right car came past at the right instant, the passenger of that car would have been gone. Now from my perspective below the bridge, all I could see was the very end of the bidwell straight up above me so when I touched up, it vanished. I knew what happened as soon as I saw that and boomed it the hell up out of there.
had a few cranes fall over next to me one at a time... One tried to pick at I'll say ZERO Degrees... 18 ton? P&H fully extended with manual and jib.. didn't work... end up about 20 feet away. 250 -500 pounds crash #2 was a boom buckled because... well rookies.. some old hydro truck crane... pull the boom to pin it but pulled it pass the pinning part. that one sent two guys to the hospital... I was 20 foot away from that on also.. but I had a refinery reactor to protect me... Also was working near a broderson ..it was another zero type degree pick..I'll give them 10 degrees. it had all it's boom out and the jib...lifting the end of a exchanger head... 2 foot diameter... he swung and thump... I picked a 3500 # valve from the top of a tower once ... the crane was a grove 85 ton with 200ish foot of boom and lattice... woobly thing.. it was a night pick so I could see .. just radios.. The crew doing it had done this maybe 20 times.. I was a little concerned with the continuous boom ups with very little cable up..... No Problems.. The next night a valve is setting on the ground... same place I set the old one.. I set the hook about two foot to me.. The guy choking it tried to boom me down... I said no the boom will bend.. It did...WAY more than I ever thought.. The valve ran about 20 feet away from the crane... kinda puckerish
Loading out a 718 it was my job to hook up the car body . Used 4, 1 1/4 dia by 20 foot steel chokers.In order to save room we set the tracks on the ground then blocked the car body on top of the tracks. Had an 80 ton hydraulic crane to pick up the parts . I put the chokers on the hook and climbed up on the car body. Operator swung the machine but didn't run out enough boom for the chokers to clear. So I drug the chokers around , 1 st two on the far side struggled to get them in position . The last two I wondered to the other side and fought them to get hooked up.I'm under the boom with my back turned to him so I know I didn't flag him but he decided to help me out by running more boom out. BANG , I heard and I froze as the 850 lb ball hit the car body right where I had been standing just moments before . The operator forgot about the whip line and extended the boom until the cable broke . He had just run out 30 feet of boom so I know he run both lines to do that . Just a lapse in thought that could have gotten me hurt. For those that don't know the car body is the section that the house sets on and the tracks connect to........44,000 lbs by its self
No anti two block devices on that rig? That wouldn't have hurt you Tiny...that would have killed you dead. That's bull@#$%
Not just hurt. An 850lbs downhaul would have killed you. Glad you werent standing there anymore.
I really want people to understand that a computer and anti two block systems are there as an aid only. Do not ever trust your life to man made devices This thing had something shorted and kept extending.
If you want to take such a dangerous, near fatal accident that lightly...that's your decision. I will say no more.
Not sure how any of that shows I was taking it lightly . My comments were for guys that think the anti two block and computer are the best thing since sliced bread. They are mere mechanical devices that break and fail. To trust them with your life shows a lack of respect for how dangerous this kind of work actually is. To me the whole purpose of this kinda of thread is to bring to light stuff done so others don't repeat it and have the close calls .The difference between a close call and a bad accident is thousands of an inch or seconds, maybe even blind luck. No Sir , Not Lightly. Not Ever
Bingo. Thats why I started this thread. The lesson to learn from your experience is what you said, computers do not replace safe operating practices. The question for operators is, how can this situation be avoided? Check your machine at the start of every shift,especially your anti two-block, and also do a quick check if you move your rig and setup in a different spot. I know I have a check list that I or my oilers have to fill out daily. Cranes can be the most dangerous machines on a job site. Especially with inexperienced operators in the seat, or riggers and signal-people alike.
I said earlier I could think of a few, and they're mostly related to just that. I still spend a lot of time working for one local builder. At one time, I was on their payroll. They bought an old (even then) 15 ton Pettibone crane. This was probably 25 years ago. One other guy (let's refer to him as Operator M), and I went to the dealership with the company owner to "learn" how to run it. Operator M got in it, and ran the boom all the way up, and out, at which point it promptly blew a hose to one of the lift cylinders. Fortunately, nothing else was in the way there on the lot, because it came all the way back down, albeit slowly enough that it didn't do any damage. It had no anti-two block system. (Matter of fact, the first time an experienced operator asked me about it, I had to ask what a tubelock device was. I didn't even know it was actually supposed to be "two block".) It had a 15 foot jib, and one day Operator M, while extending the boom, came within a few inches of pulling the jib over backwards onto the boom. Another day, Operator R had for some reason payed out enough line that he had a pile of it sitting on the ground. When he took it back in, it tangled up on the drum. Then, he made a pick of something (I don't remember, probably 50 sheets of plywood or something), and was swinging at the same time as he was paying out line. Fortunately, he wasn't extended very far, because when the drum came to a spot where there was about 2 feet of slack, the load dropped those two feet in an instant. It picked the stabilizers on the opposite side off the ground momentarily, and as it happened, just barely (like, about 18 inches), missed the load impacting a power company transformer that happend to be right beneath the load when it dropped. (Transformer for underground service, not overhead. We were never that stupid or inexperienced.) Another day, an old carpenter, (who they thought might make a crane operator, so they'd shown him how to run the crane), wanted to move a 175 air compressor. The trouble was that it was in front of the crane, and beside a big pile of dirt. Rather than moving the crane out of the way to access the compressor with a truck, he decided to lift it out and set it down in the open area to the left of the crane. He had to boom out fairly far to reach it. (Now, it needs to be noted that this was the old style machine, with the cab fixed, and the boom that rotated behind the cab. Even on stabilizers, the load capacity is waay lighter over the sides than over the front.) Yes, he picked the compressor up, and without bringing it any closer in, swung 90 degrees to the left. The jib smashed the top of the compressor, the tip of the boom was resting on the ground, and the crane itself had all four wheels in the air, as it rested on the two left-hand stabilizers. It would've been a good opportunity to pressure wash the underside, if anybody'd thought of that. I wasn't there when it happend, but it was me that had to figure out how to get it back on the ground. One close one that I was directly involved in, had to do with bad underfoot conditions. We were filling a block wall with concrete, from a 1/2 yard bucket. Three of us were on scaffold, next to the wall. As Operator F lowered the bucket into position, it suddenly dropped the last two feet, and balanced on top of the wall. We all gave him a "WT*?? Are you trying to kill us?" look, and learned that the bank beneath the front stabilizer on the right side had given way. And not being completely blameless, I'll admit to one that happened with my butt in the seat. One of the peculiarities of that old Pettibone was that if you were making two control inputs at the same time, the boom wouldn't start to move until you let off whichever other function you were also using. I dropped the boom about a foot all of a sudden, because I had down pressure on the boom control when I let go of the winch control. It was only a 5 gallon bucket of mortar on the hook, for setting a chimney cap, but I damn near knocked one of the brickies off the roof. I can't count the number of times I had two guys, standing next to each other , giving conflicting signals. I just folded my arms in front of me and told them to decide who was in charge, and then we could continue. The lesson in all that is what was said above--inexperience is really a BIG potential problem. Most of those incidents happened because we got no formal training besides, "Lever A moves part A, lever B moves part B..." That and we were mostly still pretty wet behind the ears anyway.
Well digger those were some interesting stories, glad none of them mentioned injury. Just further shows that inexperience can be dangerous, or even fatal. Even people who have been operating cranes for years get complacent sometimes. But we should always remember what can happen like the close calls in this thread to keep us from getting complacent, and keep everyone safe out there.
About 15 years ago I was "hooking" for the owner of a boom truck on a "volunteer" job on a Saturday afternoon. We were picking up pallets of parts and moving them for storage. I had my 5 year old son with me because he liked big equipment (like his dad). I hooked the straps on the first pallet which was to the right of the truck and signaled to the operator to lift it up. The pallet went up about 5-6 feet and started back down. I looked up and saw the boom coming down. I yelled at my son to run for our car (fortunately he wasn't in any danger where he was) and I ran away from the "danger area". I stopped a safe distance away and watched as the operator was quickly lowering the boom to the ground with the boom truck tipped half way over with the front steel wheel right down on ground. After everything stopped moving, he "lowered" the boom slowly and put the left side of the truck back on the ground. He had "forgot" to put the outrigger down on the right side of the truck (he was operating from the left side). I hadn't paid much attention while he was setting up because he had run cranes for years. Since then, I make a safety inspection on the setup before I get near.
I had a 8 ton Pitmon come down on me I was unloading 2000 lb propane tanks and while the boom was swinging over the control panel the bolts pulled out of threads holding boom on. The Boom came down and almost cut me in half. Luckily the hospital was less then 1 block away. there were 16 7/8 inch bolts holding the Turert on and they on went in the threads 3/4 inch. 12 bolts pulled threads out of the casting and 4 that were under compression snapped off.
Sounds like that machine was grossly overloaded. Were you injured?
Crane was not overloaded Bolts were poor design The owner put longer bolts in and sloved the problem. I was cut in half had 6 broken ribs, punctured lung and Broke Scapula. Was black and blue from lack of O2 Cops told ambulance crew not to bother I was dead. They got a fate pulse and got me to ER after a near by crane lifted my boom off. Happened 20 years ago still not able to work.
Can't really say too much about this incident, whatever the cause. Its just a miracle your alive.