The problem is that as a 19 year old, you just don’t have the perspective to see how absolutely insane such practices are. I certainly did not.
It did not even pay very well.
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So… after the pedestrian bridge failure and this… my faith in Florida construction is not being restored.
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A crane is a type of machine, generally equipped with a hoist rope, wire ropes or chains, and sheaves, that can be used both to lift and lower materials and to smite workers below.
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It should be easy to detect situations like this by measuring the attitude of the crane body. When it approaches a dangerous situation, the side under compression will start to drop, and a tilt sensor should tell the operator to back off.
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At one time the statistically most dangerous job (legally) available in the USA was “buoy tender above the Arctic Circle”. Congratulations on making it out alive!
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When you are 19 or so, you are immortal.
The Prometheus run in real life! All of those critics of the movie now owe the rest of us an apology.
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Why not have cranes programmed to drop the load if they start to tilt by a certain amount? If you don’t, the load and crane both come down anyway.
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Problem with that is there would have to be some mechanism that could automatically disconnect the load. This mechanism could fail, and drop the load on a false reading of tilt. This is probably more likely than the crane tipping. I do not know where or when this was recorded but cranes today do have interlocks that are not overridable if they reach their capacity.weight wise and reach wise. It is also possible that one of the front outriggers footings failed, hard to see
By the way, helicopters can drop the load if something goes wrong.
On all construction sites it is best just to assume the crane will tip, and never position yourself under the load or under where the boom could fall. My first thought was they should not have had those guys on that lift. It appears most of the guys were watching the crane and moved in the proper direction. That one guy was not paying attention.
Construction sites are dangerous places and we are paid to face those risks. You can not always remove all risks, but you can prepare for all risks.
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