Hooper accident 2-26-07

[Ghostrider]

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa — A Burlington, Wis., man died Monday after falling 90 feet while repairing power lines in Clinton Township, authorities said.

The 34-year-old man, whose identity has not been released, was an employee of Hooper Corp. of Madison, Wis., which Alliant Energy had contracted to repair utility lines after the weekend snow storm left thousands without electricity.

The man died at about 2:45 p.m. when his utility boom truck apparently malfunctioned, causing the basket and the worker to fall from the extended boom, according to the Linn County sheriff’s office.

The worker — a Burlington, Wis., resident — was pronounced dead at the scene. An autopsy has been ordered, officials said.

[Bull Dog]

Unfortunately this is correct-He fell 90ft according to what i heard He was one of our contractors that worked in this area and went to iowa for restoration along with all our other contractors. May God rest his soul and my heart felt sympthies with his family. Hooper is a excelent contractor and this it a rare thing. Im shure its not a good day for the men there today. From what i know there was over 100 miles of transmission line down in that area. If I find out more about this i will post.

[BigClive]

These type of posts make me squirm. You tend to feel pretty secure in a bucket so it's disturbing when an accident occurs that was due to bucket detachment. The fact it was at 90 feet makes it worse.

Most of the units I use have the harness attachment point in the bucket itself, so even a harness isn't going to help in that scenario unless the bucket detaches and then dangles. At 90 feet you'd still be in trouble with suspension trauma in an ordinary harness unless there was another bucket truck to rescue you quickly.

I hate to ask.... Was he wearing a harness?

[Ghostrider]

We are working near Perry IA. The story we heard was the basket was on a crane but it was only rumor. The guys all say Hooper is a good company to work for and can not imagine how this could have happened. I am sure the operator is sick. My thoughts are with his family.

[Electriceel]

Very sad day for all of us.
Things like this should never happen.
Harnesses are mandatory, all Lanyards are to be no more than 6' when they have been deployed.
Point of attachment is to be on the boom itself, not the bucket. If your boom heads do not have a point of attachment, have your company get the ratchet strap with the built in point of attachment.
Let's not let things like this happen again.

Pretty bad storm in eastern and northern Iowa, Alliant, MEC, and Rec's hit the hardest a few municipals.
They have more bad weather coming towards the end of the week.

Take time to be safe

[loodvig]

My thoughts are with his family.

[tramp67]

He was in a man basket attached to the deadman jib on a crane. Apparently the crane had a mechanical failure, causing the boom to telescope together. Hooper is a very safety conscious company, I'm sure we will know more details when their investigation is complete. My condolences to his family and coworkers, I can imagine the pain they are feeling.

[tramp67]

Many of the new bucket trucks have only lanyard attachments on the basket itself, the manufacturers have to meet strict ASME tests and guidlines to be able to use the basket as a point of attachment. They usually have threaded inserts on the boom tip, filled with epoxy that can be drilled out, to allow eyebolts to be attached if the user prefers.

[BigClive]

I'm pretty strict about ensuring that the guys on my jobs wear their harnesses in the bucket, but even so it's not uncommon for me to be working away up top and realise that I've forgotten to attach mine. This is easy when your up and down and in and out the bucket a lot.

Doing most of my aerial work in the city it's quite common to look down and see somebody pointing a camera at me. My first reaction is to check my harness is attached. This is probably because in Glasgow the Health and Safety officers just LOVE expensive camera's and have to justify their cost by zooming in to try and catch workers without their harnesses attached. They don't like it at all when you pull out a camera too and take a photo of them doing it.

[old lineman]

I too am saddened for this lineman and feel for his family. You wish we never had to read of these accidents.
It behoves us to learn all of the details so we can decide what steps need to be taken to ensure it doesn't happen again in the future.
Hopefully someone close to the situation will enlighten us.
In the meantime I would wonder why the boom retracted. The hydraulic cylinders on aerial devices all have to have holding valves that contain the oil in the cylinder should a fitting or hose burst.
Then it's just a matter of escaping the stranded bucket.
Hoisting cranes were not intended to become manlifts, therefore, they are not equipped with holding valves. Should a hydraulic system failure occur that releases the oil pressure gravity takes over and the boom collapses.
If a crane is outfitted with a man bucket as many are, there should be a regulation that the crane has to be upgraded with holding valves.
Otherwise we see this type of accident.
Another thing that has to be done is that the fabricated bucket that will be attached to the boom MUST be engineered and certified, otherwise we end up with buckets being fabricated in Joe's welding shop and unscruplous companies will try to get the bucket built by the lowest bidder. Worse yet it could be fabricated in the company's garage.
Someone mentioned that the lanyard could only be 6 feet long when deployed. That's incorrect.
If a worker falls the maximum dynamic force that can be exerted on the body is 1800 lbs. This can be accomplished with a lanyard that originally is 6 feet long and when the shock absorber when fully deployed is 42" longer.
Thats a total length of 114". Even with this longer length the shock absorber will hold the dynamic force under 900 lbs.
The last point I would like to make is that I diagree with the use of a ratchet boom strap. The reasons are many. A couple are;
#1 is that it will be fabric and since this a material handling crane the strap will be contacting sharp edges of steel. A far cry from a smooth fiberglass boom.
#2 fabric will deteriate over time.
#3 the telescoping boom on this type of crane fully retracts which would not allow space for a boom strap. It would be crushed when the boom is fully retracted and may not be noticed by the worker.
Since the bucket has to be engineered the anchorage for fall protection can also be done at the same time. The anchorage for fall protection must be able to withstand 5,000 lbs of dynamic force without distortion.
The the need to wear fall protection goes without saying.
I will be interested to learn more details.
The Old Lineman