11.07.2013
Another tree job
A crane overturned onto a house yesterday in Valley Cottage, New York, while trying to lift a tree from the front of a house.
The home owner had hired the O'Sullivan Tree Care Company to remove a large tree in front of the house O’Sullivan, which runs A small crane of its own - (a rare JLG truck crane) - but according to police rented a three axle commercially mounted truck crane from Olori Crane. (See update below)
Jim O'Sullivan of O’Sullivan Tree Care is reported as saying: “strong winds picked up the tree as Gregory Olori was operating the crane. The tree then crashed through the roof of the house.”
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The view after the event
The building was occupied at the time, but the family was fortunately in the basement when the incident occurred. No one was hurt. Osha is investigating what went wrong.
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A view from above
UPDATE
The local police department has issued a statement saying that its original
statement regardin the ownership of the crane was wrong and that the crane that overturned was in fact owned by O'Sullivan Tree Service.
Vertikal Comment
Yet another crane operator caught out while trying to lift a tree! They are one of the trickiest jobs to handle, and the only sure way is to grossly oversize the crane and build in plenty of room for error.
Although it sounds as if the principle factors in this case are a sudden storm that ran through the area and appears to have caught the contractors by surprise.
Craniac 1
The crane on the ground is also a JLG and both appear to be 20T model 2000T. While the report notes the tipped crane belongs to a crane rental business, the tree company name is clearly visible on the boom at approximately the :15 to :18 second point in the news video here- http://westchester.news12.com/news/osha-to-investigate-valley-cottage-crane-collapse-1.5663221 It might seem that if the conditions were as bad as stated in the video, it would have been a better choice to stop work until conditions improved? Fortunate only property damage resulted.