Cherry Picker Accident

[Andy™]

cherry picker fell over, basket landed on hard shoulder of M25... looks like it was at full height from the video

A man has died after a cherry-picker access platform crashed on to the M25 in Buckinghamshire, police said.

The man, who is believed to have fallen off the platform from a yard beside the motorway, died at the scene.

Emergency services were called just after 09:20 BST after reports it had ended up on the anti-clockwise carriageway, near junction 15.

A South Central Ambulance Service spokesman said the platform was thought to have fallen 130ft (40m).

bbc link - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-22779523

 

[Bacon]

Shame about the person who died in accident.

Now heres a thought i've allways had when working from cherry pickers is the harness and lanyard

personally i don't like strapping myself to them on the bases that if it did topple over i think i would have

more chance jumping out of it as it falls than just waiting for it to hit the ground with me still trapped to the basket.

But H&S rules these days.

 

[Andy™]

in some cases, you must not wear a harness or any other restraint

 

[Jono Pashley]

Harness on a boom is mainly to stop the catapult effect in a accident. Idiots on the daily mail website droning on about outriggers not being down and it behing the guys fault. Machine is a Z-135/70 they dont come equipped with them. Very sad will be intrested to know what caused such a tragic event.

 

[Sidewinder]

I was talking to the guy delivering a few Cherry Pickers to one day & he related 2 tales.

The first, loading up a big machine on to the back of the wagon, harness on, winch remote in hand, winching the machine up.

Winch rope broke, machine just ran backwards off the lorry, basket hit the deck and threw him up in the air, arrested by the harness & landed back in the basket.

Embarrassed, bruised & sore, but otherwise unharmed.

No harness & he would have been catapulted up into the air and landed goodness knows where.

The second, he used to be the driver/operator of a VERY large lorry mounted platform, so large, that it was not self drive!

IIRC he was at a Petrochem site, had to go WAY up with an Engineer & Safety Guy to look at a stack.

The usual "uniform", Hi-Vis, hard hat & harness.

On the way up he was asked by the passengers why he was not clipped onto the basket, because he should have been in case of an accident.

Now this was a static boom, thus travel only possible when stowed.

So, no danger of catapult action when travelling.

Only danger is malfunction of the boom, or inadvertent operation of the controls.

Controls operated by competent person.

Boom well maintained.

Residual risk, low!

He advised his passengers that the height that they were going up to, if the thing fell over he would rather take the risk of trying to jump from the basket on the way down say 20ft from the ground rather than be tethered to the falling basket.

The passengers looked at each other, & disconnected!

Now, read into these tales what you will, the link by Andy is very tragic, an innocent person has lost their life through no fault of their own I strongly suspect.

Harness, yes or no, me, yes at all times, but, I never go that high & I feel safer with it on.

There are times when you never wear a harness with them anyway and that is recognised, when you are working over water, no harness, but a life jacket.

 

[OnOff]

Tilt alarm? Maybe the ground gave way.............nasty whatever.

An instructor on the things was telling me that he once had to go with the delivery driver to a site and then instruct the personnel there. The site entrance was low so they offloaded the MEWP outside the gates and were met by the site agent. He decided he'd drive it to the demo area so him and the site agent hopped in to the basket. Showing off he decided to gun it and put the wind up the site guy...............he didn't realise that there were sleeping policeman along the access road! Seems the site bloke saw the "funny" side.

 

[boltonsparky]

Looks like a hire yard of them from the vid so would have thought he would have known what he was doing so would guess at some form of equipment failure. 

Wouldn't fancy my chances tethered in or not from a fall of 135ft but reckon you'd be better jumping at the last minute, would imagine the sheer shock and speed of it going over would render you useless to do anything though.

The truck mounted ones that go over a couple of hundred feet amaze me how they actually stay up.

 

[Doc Hudson]

Tragic incident for the relatives of the man who died. Looking at the video images I wonder if the shock of falling toward the motorway could have induced death from the fright even before impact with the ground?

Doc H.

 

[Manator]

I think our thoughts at this moment in time should be with the family and friends of the poor soul who lost his life.

Speculation at any early stage just confuses the issue that tragically someone going about their daily work paid the ultimate price. Let the authorities do their job and find out how and why this accident happened then perhaps one of us reading this could be saved from the same fate.

 

[Technician]

I have looked at the video;  Shame I could not zoom it.

That is NOT a collapse;  that is an overturning due to

instability. It looks as if the Genie Boom was at maximum

elevation when it happened.

Yes, they do have tilt switches that prevent excessive

elevation when on sloping ground, and they also have

the means to prevent wheel movement when the boom

is at extended elevation.

I could not see any outriggers, either fitted or deployed.

As Manator, my thoughts are with the family of the man

who did not go home after a day's work.