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 Brooklyn company Lifting Solutions was lifting I-beams for Starr Construction when the hydraulic system failed and the boom crashed on the sidewalk. Pedestrians panicked and ran for cover. Some of them thought it was an explosion. One person was sent to the emergency room after being injured by the debris.
A hazardous material team was dispatched by the FDNY to clean up the spill of hydraulic fluid.
Tipping and boom breakage are the most common truck mounted crane accidents
Boom breakage is a common accident with knuckle boom trucks like the one that collapsed in Manhattan on Monday. This type of accident is most often caused by human error. Investigators are now looking for the exact causes of the accident. Among them, the following ones are the most probable:
- Overloading: using a boom crane beyond its loading capacity can cause the truck to tip or sections of the boom to break
- Wrong positioning or swinging the boom to quickly can cause too much stress on the boom and cause structural damage
- Lack of maintenance: if not proprely lubricated, the moving parts can break-down quickly.The engine that drives the hydraulic system also needs to be tuned up on a regular basis to function well.
Investigators will also determine if the crane operator had the proper training and certification to handle this type of equipment. Knuckle boom trucks are highly versatile vehicles that can only be operated by workers who have had specific training and successfully passed the exam required by OSHA.
Read more in the NY Daily News