On 2012-07-12, Karl Townsend wrote:
On Thu, 12 Jul 2012 08:23:40 -0500, "Pete C."
wrote:


Ignoramus21436 wrote:

I was at a closed down factory today. The factory was bought out by a
scrapper. I bought some ironworkers, angle cutters, hoists and such
from him.

One thing that I bought was a 7.5 ton bridge crane (lifting and
runners only, no I-beams).

The crane was about 80 feet wide and they were removing a huge
I-beam that made up the bridge itself.

They were supporting it in the middle with a telehandler. One side was
already cut with oxygen. The worker was cutting another side, standing
on a scissor lift.

When the final cut made through, the beam heaved, rolled off the forks and
fell on the scissor lift. And may I mention that it was a lot larger
than the lift.

Fortunately, it did not fall all the way, it was caught by a chain
from the top of the telehandler boom, and so it rested on top of the
scissor lift. The scissor lift almost toppled and the guy in it
would, no doubt, be in big trouble. After this all ended, he was
laughing hysterically, though it did not seem funny to me.

i

Some people lack rigging sense and each time they somehow survive their
carelessness it just reinforces the carelessness. Eventually it catches
up with them and they go splat, hopefully without any civilian
casualties.

Yep, its easy to cheat death.

Trouble is, death only has to win once.

If I may play a devil's advicate for a minute, I must say that this
sort of stuff is naturally a very dangerous business. Doing that work
properly would necessitate bringing in two telehandlers instead of
one, which is, alas, very expensive. I am not advocating any unsafe
things, but I am saying that this is a naturally very dangerous job
that is not easy to make safe.

i