Safety News

Second Construction Worker Dies in New York

05.30.08, CNN

By Amy Sahba and Laura Batchelor

NEW YORK (CNN) -- Two construction workers died Friday when a construction crane collapsed in Upper Manhattan during the morning rush hour, city officials said.
Crane wreckage lies on Manhattan's Upper East Side on Friday in a photo by iReporter Michael Schuman.
A police spokesperson confirmed the second construction worker died Friday afternoon of cardiac arrest after being rushed to the hospital.
In addition, the crane operator was killed in the initial collapse, and another person remains critically injured, a city official said.
It is the second construction crane collapse in Manhattan in less than three months. Seven people were killed in March when a construction crane toppled over, plowing through several residential buildings.
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the two cranes were different types.
"Two crane collapses in a short period of time look like a pattern, but there's no reason to think that there's any real connection," he said.
On a radio program Friday, Bloomberg vowed that an investigation would be conducted and changes would be made if necessary.
"I don't need any developer or union leader or anybody else telling me about the consequences of slowing things down," he said. "Nobody wants this economy to grow more than me. But we're not going to kill people."
The accident happened shortly after 8 a.m. Bridget Barrett, who lives two buildings away, said she was just leaving for work.
"We heard a loud crash as I was walking down my stairwell. I went to the front door of the building, and it was all white smoke everywhere," she said.
"The crane had fallen in the middle of the street and was on fire. There was water spewing out of the
apartment building all over the place. And I dialed 911."
Witnesses said the cab and the arm of the crane crashed more than 20 stories to the ground, smashing the penthouse on a building across the street and gouging chunks out of balconies all the way to the ground.
"It sounded like a large metal structure slowly falling on itself, sounded like a prolonged car accident," said iReport contributor Daniel Miranda, who lives a block away. "Construction workers were peering over the edge. Some of them were crying out in grief."
A pedestrian had minor injuries, Bloomberg said at a news conference, adding that nearby buildings with about 160 apartments were evacuated "strictly as a precaution."
The collapse occurred a day after a building inspector rescinded a partial stop-work order that had been issued April 24.
The order was issued after an inspection found that employees had been working without a permit and operating a crane in an "unsafe manner," according to the city's Building Department. No other details were available.
The collapse left a pile of wreckage at the foot of the Azure, an apartment building under construction at the northwest corner of East 91st Street and First Avenue, a mainly residential area on the city's Upper East Side.
The falling crane also damaged the Electra, a 20-plus-story building on the southwest corner.
Michael Schuman, another iReporter, said he heard a loud crash, grabbed his camera and went to the scene, about five buildings away.
"I got there before the emergency vehicles. It looked like the crane had broken into three or four large pieces. I saw water pouring out of one of the apartments," Schuman said.
Florence Diamond, a bus driver who was approaching the corner when the accident happened, said the crane's operator appeared to have been in the cab when the rig fell.
"I just saw all the crane come down in the middle of the street. It was like something out of a movie,"
Diamond said. "I couldn't believe the crane had fell, and I also saw the guy that was operating the crane go down with it. It was just one guy."
Appearing at news briefing with Bloomberg, New York Gov. David Paterson said that "we're going to have to take a look at all these crane accidents."
"There's no need to speculate now on how this happened. That will all be investigated," he said. "But
certainly, these types of accidents are all too frequent."
Barrett said she had worried about construction sites since the March crane disaster. "It's just kind of baffling that this happened again," she said.
"I've seen that crane for the past couple months, and of course I thought about, 'What if it fell on my building or buildings around me?' I just kind of dismissed it because [I thought] there's no way that could happen after it had already happened once," she said.
A construction worker at the site identifying himself only as Anthony said he didn't know what happened Friday, but he called it "a scary thing."
"Everything goes through your head when you start seeing things like that happen," the worker said. "You think about your family, your wife, your kids. Just, thank God, you know, whoever is alive is alive."
In response to the fatal collapse, officials in the nation's capital ordered an emergency inspection of
construction cranes throughout Washington.
"This is precautionary," said Linda Argo, the head of D.C.'s regulatory affairs department. "It seems prudent and appropriate to take a look at these structures."
There have been no reported problems with construction cranes in Washington. About 40 lifts are currently operating at various construction sites.
Their owners were asked Friday to schedule inspections within the next few business days.
Because of a longstanding height restriction on buildings constructed within historic Washington, cranes in the city are lower, weigh less and require less structural fortification than those that build the skyscrapers of New York.
The typical tower crane in the District of Columbia is mounted on the ground on a concrete pedestal built for the task. Regulations restrict the area swept from overhead during moves by the horizontal part of the crane.