The crane accident that killed 4 people at a Google office project in Seattle and the collapse of the Hard Rock Hotel project that resulted in 3 deaths were among the most horrendous construction accidents that occur last year in the US. While these major tragedies were all over the…
After two successive crane accidents in New York including one fatal, the company United Crane and Rigging was temporary barred from continuing work at 22 construction sites in the city. The NYC DOB will allow the company to restart work only after it replaces some of the employees involved in…
A NYC hard hat who was installing a crane died after the counter weight he was setting fell on him. 34 year old Gregory Echevarria was part of a crew installing a crane at a luxury residential development located at 570 Broome Street in Soho early Saturday morning. A little…
A 63 year old man injured his foot in a crane accident in New York. The accident occurred around 10:20 pm on Monday night near Penn Station on 34th Street in Midtown Manhattan. As it was lifting material, the arm of the machine collapsed. The truck mounted crane belonging to the…
Last June, two construction workers were seriously injured in a mini-crane accident in New York because of the negligence of their contractor, Western Waterproofing Co. Inc from St. Louis (see previous blog). The accident occurred after two supervisors working for the contractor rented a mini-crane, installed it on the fourth floor…
In June 2018 two construction workers were seriously injured in a mini crane accident in New York because of the negligence of their supervisors. These supervisors were indicted last week for their reckless behavior. They face second degree assault and reckless endangerment. The accident occurred on June 25th at a…
To better protect construction workers from dangerous crane accidents, OSHA recently released a final rule on crane operator certification requirements. The new rule makes employers responsible for the training and evaluation of their crane operators. Employers are also responsible for documenting the successful completion of the evaluations. Crane operators need…
Crane accidents can have dramatic consequences and one way to prevent such accidents is to make sure crane operators are proprely trained and certified. So far, operators of cranes and derricks have been receiving different levels of certification based on the rated operating capacity (ROC) of the machine they are…
More than two years ago, our client Rebecca Wichs lost her husband in a crane accident in downtown Manhattan. David Wichs was crossing the street when he was fatally struck by a collapsing crane. That day, despite heavy snow and winds, the City didn’t order crane operators to lower and…
To reduce the number of crane accidents, OSHA has been working on a new rule that would require crane operators to be certified. The certification requirement was supposed to come into effect on November 10th 2017. However one day before, on November 9th, OSHA published a Final Rule postponing this…