08.02.2013
Boom lift jammed
A man had to be rescued from a 135ft boom lift yesterday after he managed to jam the platform against a building in central Manchester, UK.
The man, a window cleaner employed by Reflekt Cleaning, was cleaning windows at a height of around 15 metres, when he appears to have lowered the boom which then connected with the building, getting hung up on a ledge.
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The road was closed while the operator was rescued and the rental company looked to recover the machine.
It would appear that he continued lowering the platform until it lifted two of the wheels off the ground and tripped the overload device, locking out the Genie Z135/70.
He was rescued by local fire fighters, transferring from platform to platform and then called the owners, rental company PAS which stabilised the machine while bringing it down safely.
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A closer look
Peter Wellspring
Is this a case of the wrong machine for the job. Why would you need to use a 135 for only 15 - 20 m. Surely if they had to use this machine, they could have moved the unit out onto the road more and provided some proper traffic management.