An accident involving several cars and a crane on a citybound lane of the Anzac Bridge caused significant delays this morning, the NSW Transport Management Centre says.

All citybound lanes were closed after the crash about 8.30am, a spokesman said.

Video footage showed the boom of the crane was wedged into the back of a passenger car.

One person was treated by paramedics for minor injuries and taken to St Vincent’s Hospital in a stable condition.

The lanes were reopened about 9.55am.

The spokesman said earlier: “It’s a very busy thoroughfare at this time of the morning and it will take a little while for the traffic to clear.”

Separately, a 12-year-old boy was hit by a car on Victoria Road, North Parramatta, about 7.25am, a NSW Ambulance spokeswoman said.

The boy was taken to hospital in a serious condition with head injuries.

A man was shocked and burned by powerful current from high-voltage lines that pass over a construction site where a bridge will be built over the Beaver River.

Century Steel Erectors construction manager Rubbie Greenewalde said the iron worker was standing on a barge on the river and had contact with a line extending down from a big crane at about 8:35 a.m. Wednesday.

“We still don’t know whether it was an arc, or whether the crane touched the wires, but the man apparently got shocked by grabbing on to the cable from the crane,” Beaver County Commissioner Tony Amadio said.

Bill Pasquale, of Medic Rescue ambulance service, said another deckhand was standing on the barge and may have been insulated because of his shoes.

Pasquale said there was “a loud noise, or a loud bang. That’s why we’re not sure if the crane even contacted the wires. But it got close enough to at least arc the electricity from the high tension lines to the crane itself.”

The injured worker was taken to Heritage Valley Beaver hospital and then transported by helicopter to a Pittsburgh hospital.

“We feel very sorry, of course, for the individual that was injured. We’ll be in close contact with the family and so forth as we’re moving forward here in the next few hours, but it’s certainly a very disheartening situation, tragic situation,” County Commissioner Dennis Nichols said.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration will investigate.

“We know it’s a 23,000-volt conductor,” Nichols said. “When you say ‘juice,’ that’s current flow. Nobody’s going to be able to tell you that. It was a 23,000-volt line.”

A 21 year old man operating a boom lift at a site in near Oslo airport in Norway yesterday, was thrown from the platform, but escaped with minor injuries.

The boom lift had, we understand become stuck on soft ground on the edge of an excavation at the site of the new 8,000 square metre Saga Senter project in Jessheim, Norway.

The operator was trying to get the machine ‘unstuck’ and had slewed the platform over the side with the counterweight pointing in the direction of the excavation, the platform was actually close to the ground, when one side of the lift slipped and dropped into the excavation causing a massive catapult effect in the platform.

The man was clearly not wearing a harness and lanyard and was ejected. He apparently landed on a fence, which may well have saved his life, he escaped with an injury to his left leg and a damaged right knee.

The contractor Øyvind Ødemark i ØM Fjeld said that the Labour Inspectorate has been notified of the incident and that the company has instigated an investigation into exactly what happened.

EDGEWORTH — A Raccoon Township man died after being shocked by a power line Wednesday while trimming a tree in Edgeworth.

Chester Sipes, 47, was working in a D.L.S. Tree Service bucket truck about 1:55 p.m. in the front yard of 411 Chestnut Road, across the street from Edgeworth Elementary School, when he backed into a high-voltage power line, authorities said.

Edgeworth Police Chief John English was on his way to the police station and was about a block away from the house when he saw sparks fly into the air followed by a “flash of light,” he said.

English and two other D.L.S. employees on the ground immediately called for emergency responders, but it took crews about 10 minutes to lower the bucket because the truck’s electronic controls were destroyed.

“You have a helpless feeling because there was no way to get him down,” English said. “It was very sad to watch.”

Sipes was alive while still inside the bucket, English said, but was in “extremely bad condition.”

Sipes was taken by ambulance to Heritage Valley Sewickley hospital, where doctors pronounced him dead around 2:30 p.m., the Allegheny County Medical Examiner’s Office said. An autopsy is scheduled for Thursday morning.

English said power to neighboring homes and businesses was not affected, though some reported lights flickered inside the elementary school.

Quaker Valley School District officials said counselors were brought in to assist elementary teachers and pupils who may have witnessed the incident from inside the building.

Director of Administrative Services Joseph Marrone said the district redirected parents and buses to the front of the school during the afternoon pickup times in order to keep students away from the area.

“Everybody cooperated and everybody was calm,” Marrone said.

In a letter sent out electronically and posted on the district’s website, officials said that counselors will continue to be available for children or adults who may need emotional support in the coming days.

Duquesne Light Co. crews arrived shortly after the incident and repaired the severed wire, which English said carries 13,200 volts of electricity.

Allegheny County police detectives and federal Occupational Safety and Heath Administration investigators also were on the scene for several hours Wednesday afternoon investigating the incident.

The Original Story

Contractor Bowmer & Kirkland has been fined £280,000 for the 2009 collapse of a tower crane in Liverpool that left the operators paralysed.

Structural engineer Bingham Davis, which has since ceased trading, was also found culpable and fined a nominal £1,000.

Inadequate foundations was determined as the cause.

A 79m-high Wolff 500B luffing jib tower crane toppled on 6 July 2009 while making a lift during construction of an apartment block and hotel on the Kings Dock Mill site in Liverpool’s Chandlers Wharf. Operator Iain Gillham, a 53-year-old father of four, fell from his cab onto the roof of the apartments and was left paralysed from the waist down.

The Health & Safety Executive (HSE) prosecuted the site’s principal contractor, Bowmer & Kirkland, and Bingham Davis following an investigation into the incident.

Liverpool Crown Court heard that the crane fell onto a partially constructed apartment block, across a road and came to rest on the Chandlers Wharf apartments. Eight counterweights on the crane, weighing a total of 56t, broke free and crashed through the roof and six floors of the building.

Mr Gillham suffered multiple injuries including a brain haemorrhage, fractured skull, broken right shoulder, broken ribs, crush injuries to his left side, and major spinal injuries which resulted in his legs being paralysed.

No one inside the building was injured but residents had to be evacuated from the 64 apartments, and some were rescued from their balconies. The damage to the building was extensive and residents were unable to return to their homes for nearly two years while major reconstruction work took place.

The HSE investigation into the incident found that the crane’s foundation could not cope with the forces generated by the crane. During the construction of the foundation, both Bowmer & Kirkland and Bingham Davis agreed to cut away essential steel reinforcement bars from the four concrete foundation piles, so that the crane’s feet could sit on top on them. These were replaced with four steel rods in each pile.

Summing up in court, Judge Gilmour said he was satisfied that it was the removal of the reinforcing steel and the inadequate replacement of the steel rods that led to the foundation being unable to cope with the forces of the crane. This subsequently led to the foundation being overloaded and the crane collapsing.

Both companies were found guilty of breaches of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 following a trial at Liverpool Crown Court by failing to ensure the safety of workers or residents.

Bowmer & Kirkland Ltd, of Church Street in Heage, Derbyshire, was fined £280,000. A decision on prosecution costs will be made separately.

Bingham Davis Ltd, formerly of Temple Street in Liverpool, has ceased trading since the crane collapse after going into voluntary liquidation. The company was fined a nominal £1,000.

Speaking after the hearing, HSE investigating inspector Warren Pennington said: “Serious failings on the parts of both Bowmer & Kirkland Ltd and Bingham Davis Ltd were uncovered by the Health & Safety Executive during an extensive and complex investigation into the crane collapse.

“Whilst it is bad enough that Iain Gillman will be unable to walk for the rest of his life as a result of the failings of both parties, it is no exaggeration to say it was only by pure chance that this catastrophic event did not result in multiple fatalities and significantly more damage to property.

“The circumstances leading to the collapse were a mess. Bingham Davis employees had no previous experience of designing the type of crane foundation used at Kings Dock Mill. Likewise, Bowmer & Kirkland’s employees at Kings Dock Mill had no experience of building one. Both parties made disastrous errors that were entirely preventable.

“The original error was made by Bingham Davis Ltd, which failed to spot a basic mistake in its calculations for the loadings imposed by the crane. This created a material risk which had the potential to have led to a crane foundation being constructed that was not strong enough to hold the crane up.

“During construction of the foundation, Bingham Davis advised Bowmer & Kirkland to cut away essential steel reinforcing bars in the foundation piles and replace such with steel rods. The removal of such reinforcing steel resulted in the foundation being too weak to support the crane. The foundation was further weakened when Bowmer & Kirkland failed to ensure the adequate insertion of the replacement steel rods.

“Neither company did enough to check what the result would be of cutting away this essential steel reinforcement and replacing such with steel rods.”

Mr Pennington added: “HSE hopes this case sends a clear message to the construction industry in relation to tower cranes foundations. Designers of such should be familiar with industry accepted guidance and follow it, unless they have extremely well thought-out reasons for not doing so. The role of the principal contractor is also crucial in managing the design process. Both principal contractors and designers should ensure that robust systems for design checking are actioned at all times.

“We will continue to engage with the industry to ensure that lessons are learned.”

Over the past decade, nine people have been killed and there have been 25 serious injuries as a result of incidents involving tower cranes, the HSE said.

The latest casualty of wind those farm roads that are unsuited for cranes or big aerial lifts is a 103 metre WT1000 truck mounted aerial lift which rolled at the Gordonbush wind farm in Scotland.

However the lift is just one of several examples of cranes or lifts over-tuning on wind farm sites in recent weeks. We understand that a 250 tonne crane rolled recently on a wind farm in the west of Ireland, with a further three big cranes said to have suffered a similar fate across Europe.

All possibly brought on by the exceptionally wet weather that many areas experienced in April and the start of May.

The truck mounted lift in Scotland was, we understand making its way into the site to carry out blade inspection work when the road began to subside on a bend, causing the lift to slide into the ditch and over-turn. Thankfully the operator was not injured.

The ground in the area is very soft, consiting largely of peat, so any recovery crane will require a substantial temporary hard standing. We understand that the recovery work will start next week.

A 100 tonne crane boom buckled while lifting bridge beams in Northern Norway earlier this week.

The crane, owned by Vest Kran, was working from a massive barge, installing a new bridge in Vikan, near Bodø when the incident occurred. No one was injured.

According to the plant manager employed by the contractor, Reinertsen, the crane’s boom was almost fully extended to between 40 and 50 metres when the second section suddenly buckled way. Although it is not clear we also understand that the final section also broke away – possibly as it landed?

An investigation is underway with talk of overloading, fatigue, side loadings or other causes.

Vest Kran, founded in 1992, is based in Ågotnes and operates in Norway and Sweden, with a focus on the wind, oil and gas industries.

A boom truck fell over onto its side at the T-Dock in front of Icicle Seafoods in the small boat harbor Tuesday May 8, killing the boom truck operator, Felix Morales, 52, of California. The tip of the boom arm punctured the deck of the MV Kaylor T, which it had apparently been either loading or unloading when the truck fell over. Morales was thrown down onto the deck, and died instantly.

The Seward Police Department, Fire Department, Seward Volunteer Ambulance Corps, and Bear Creek Volunteer Fire Department responded to multiple 911 calls for help at 9:00 a.m. They used two loaders to try to stabilize the truck, and workers raced against the receding tide to upright it before it fell 20 feet onto the boat below, according to a press release by the Seward Police. Two deck hands aboard the boat who witnessed the accident were visibly shaken but unhurt. Local observers said the crane’s arm was fully extended. Boom trucks are commonly used to transfer loads from the dock onto boats. The industrial accident is pending an investigation by OSHA. Morales’ next of kin were identified.

A self-propelled boom lift overturned on Monday at a construction site in Avilés, northern Spain killing the operator, 27 year old construction worker Gonzalo Fuente López.

López was painting metal elements on the facade of a new building with a fully extended Haulotte HA260PX 4×4 articulated boom, we understand that he was travelling with the machine on some standing when the wheels on one side came into contact with soft ground and began to sink causing the lift to overturn. He remained in the platform which was crushed when it hit the ground.

The paramedics declared him dead at the scene. The National and local police, and an inspector from the ministry of labour, examined the machine and the ground yesterday and are conducting a formal investigation.

The XCMG Loader Crane flipped landing on a travelling car at the Zhengzhou airport in North Central China.

The occupants of the flattened car survived with minor injuries to the driver - The family of four included a two year old.