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c/crane-operators•paul_taylor21paul_taylor21•4d ago

Knocked a chunk of concrete off a hospital roof in Charlotte last Tuesday

I was on a 50 ton Grove doing a HVAC swap on the 4th floor of Carolinas Medical Center. The wind was gusting around 15 mph which I figured was fine for a 3 ton unit. But on the pickup the load caught a draft and swung maybe 2 feet into a parapet wall. It just grazed it but a foot long piece of coping stone broke off and hit the ground. Nobody got hurt thank God but the hospital safety guy came running out and shut the job down for 2 hours while they inspected. Ever since then I strap a tag line to every load no matter how small. Anyone else had a close call that made you change your rigging routine?
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3 Comments
piper779
piper7794d ago
Yeah tag lines changed everything for me after a similar oops. Simple fix worth every second.
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jana_jones
Wait, so you're telling me you busted a chunk off a hospital roof and the safety guy had a meltdown? That must have been a fun two hours of standing around explaining physics to a guy in a hard hat who thinks a 2 foot swing is code red. I had a similar thing happen once with a condenser that decided to do a pirouette over a chain link fence. Now I leash every damn thing like it's a golden retriever that bolts at the sight of a squirrel. Concrete doesn't judge, but it definitely remembers your mistakes.
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wood.eric
wood.eric3d agoProlific Poster
That 2 hour shutdown must've been miserable, glad nobody got hurt though.
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