What is Our Experience with Crane Operating Accidents?
Video transcript: I’ve had a couple of crane accidents that really stand out. I’ve handled multiple, but there were two in particular that stand out. One happened over in Beaumont where a young man got his hand crushed and lost the use of his hand and another happened here in Freeport at one of the chemical plants. The interesting part about crane accident cases is the crane operators probably have more control on a job site than anyone else out there because it’s such a specialized field and the dangers associated with it. Crane operators are always going to be the ones in control of every lift, so they’re the ones that have the responsibility of making sure that you have the proper rigging, the proper signal callers. And a lot of today’s cranes now have safety mechanisms built into them where if a load gets in what they call a bind, where it’s putting too much tension on the actual cable, most cranes have a safety override inside the crane. But what we found is a lot of crane operators turn that off, because they think that they know better than then the equipment and they want to get the job done. That becomes a problem. Crane operators and crane operating cases take expert witnesses, specific experts to hire that know all the rules and regulations. Usually bad things again happen because when a crane is involved, they’re usually lifting real heavy loads.