Many job-site accidents are the result of a lack of training and equipment failure. Don’t let that happen to you and your employees. Sign up for training or schedule your next inspection. But first, read on for the November 2022 accidents.
An accident at the Akranes Sports Hall
We are reprinting this article from the Iceland Monitor originally published on November 16, 2022.
A construction crane fell on top of Akranes Sports Hall yesterday, causing damage to the roof. When the crane fell young kids were training in the building. Thankfully noone was hurt. The street was closed off while attempts were madeto get the construction crane off the roof.
“I was down at Jaðarbakkar just minutes ago with my son going to a basketball practice in another building,” says Páll Guðmundur Ásgeirsson project manager for the sports team ÍA in Akranes just around 7 PM yesterday. “Then I saw that the police had closed off the whole area and they had another construction crane in place trying to get the other one off the roof.”
His daughter was in the sports hall when the crane fell on the roof, and Ásgeirsson says that many of the children were quite alarmed. The children training when the accident happened were 6-7 years old or 1st and 2nd graders.
The children have been offered trauma support
“I wasn’t there myself, but I heard that the coaches had taken all the kids to one end of the hall, and understandably the kids were quite alarmed,” Ásgeirsson says, adding that the coaches have sent out a notice to the children’s parents offering trauma support to those who want to receive it.
“We don’t know yet how long the sports hall will be closed, but at least there will be no training sessions in the next few days. It’s still all unclear and we still don’t know what caused it. We have in fact no other training area when the weather is so wet, because you can’t play football on the synthetic grass fields in this kind of weather.”
Platform overturn
We are reprinting this article from Vertikal.net originally published on November 23 2022.
A man was seriously injured on Monday when the platform he was working from overturned in Bury, near Manchester, UK.
The man, 30, an employee of the local council, was helping erect a Christmas tree at Bury Market when the incident occurred. The lift – an UpRight SL20 – was almost full extended to a platform height of around five metres or so, as it went over. The man was thrown onto a glazed roof and crashed through onto the ground inside.
Bury council said: “Unfortunately there was an accident at Bury Market this morning behind Princess Parade, which has resulted in a member of the council’s staff being taken to hospital with leg injuries. We understand that equipment being used to help erect a Christmas tree on the market toppled over into the canopy of an adjacent shop. That part of the market was not open at the time, and the area was cordoned off. We informed the Health and Safety Executive and will be conducting our own inquiry into the incident. Our thoughts are with our colleague, and we wish him a speedy recovery.”
At first glance it is not clear what caused the overturn, the ground appears to be relatively flat, level and firm, overloading from within the platform does not usually cause instability on this type of lift. However, it is possible that the machine was being used to lift the tree by a rope around the deck extension, the evidence from the photograph we have received certainly suggests that this is what caused the lift to become unstable.
Hospital damaged, patients evacuated after construction equipment crashes through roof
This article is reprinted from The Age, originally published on November 23, 2022.
Rescuers say dozens of patients were “incredibly lucky” to escape injury when construction equipment crashed through the roof of a hospital in Melbourne’s south-east forcing dozens of patients to evacuate.
Aerial images show a piling rig – similar in size to a crane – overturned on a neighbouring construction site on Yuille Street after landed on Frankston Hospital on Wednesday.
Police said about 70 people were evacuated from the hospital as a precaution and no one was injured.
Fire Rescue Victoria assistant chief fire officer Greg Christison told Nine News it was lucky no staff or patients in the wing at the time were hurt.
“We’re incredibly lucky to have no injuries,” he said on Wednesday.
There was a significant amount of damage to the wing, he added.
“[There was] a lot of chaos there at the initial point of the incident,” Christison said.
A Department of Health spokesperson said the incident occurred at about 10am on Wednesday.
“Around 30 patients will be re-accommodated as investigations begin into the cause of the incident, with WorkSafe also on site,” they said.
Worksafe Victoria confirmed it had been notified of the incident and investigators were responding.
Peninsula Health has been contacted for comment.
Frankston Hospital is one of the largest medical centres on the Mornington Peninsula and construction started on a $1.1 billion redevelopment of the site in June.
The overhaul includes a new 12-storey clinical services tower, 130 additional beds, new spaces for mental health and oncology services and 15 new operating theatres.
The Victorian government initially pledged $562 million in funding for the Frankston Hospital redevelopment in September 2018. It then provided an additional $43 million in the 2021-22 budget to expand the project to include a new car park and emergency paediatric and mental health zones.
This year, the government outlined a further $513 million in project funding, bringing its total cost to $1.1 billion – about double the original price tag.
The Exemplar Health consortium was announced as the preferred private-sector investor for the public-private partnership project in February.
The main hospital redevelopment works were expected to be completed in 2025.
If you see an accident report you’d like us to feature in the blog, like the ones shown here in the November 2022 Accidents Reports, let us know. Contact heather@cranes101.com with the information.