The survivors were very fortunate. These guys were not so lucky:
Dave
The Senior Road collapse was due to failure of a fabricated u bolt that did not meet specifications.
It’s also the quintessential case study of why climbers are NOT allowed on hoisted equipment anymore and why most of the time the tower must be cleared of non-essential personnel when hoisting antenna arrays into place.
There’s still a crap-ton of workers who’ll either ride antennas or stay on the tower to “save time” though, and about once a year it kills one of them.
The better tower management companies won’t allow it. They’ll throw a contractor that does it off of their site and tell them never to come back.
And I agree with the sentiment that one engineer had when he balled up in a ball and waited for death... I’ve seen hoisted antennas dropped and that’s bad enough. Freaking deadly game of lawn darts. Especially for the tag line guy or guys.
Never been present for a full tower collapse. Don’t ever want to be either. Have taken a few down safely and maneuvering tower sections coming down under control is bad enough.
For smaller towers a crane and a good operator are wonderful things, as compared to traditional jin-poling tower sections up or down.
Thankfully the worst injury I’ve seen was a dropped tool and a broken collar bone. Guy wasn’t wearing a hard hat that had a brim on it all the way around (“lineman’s hard hat”) which would have tossed the monkey wrench out to at least his shoulder or past it and probably avoided the broken bone.
He needed assistance off of the tower after that, of course. One of the best climbers and safety guys I know hustled down to him (he didn’t drop the tool) and explained how they’d get him off the tower with only one arm operating and do it quick enough that his other arm didn’t completely tire out. The tool dropped was mortified but got over it. Made sure he was strapped in, too. Even with a hard hat, it’s a hell of a wallop to the head when something hits it. But at least he didn’t die with a wrench sticking out of his skull.
Emergency rescue is one time where it’s into the realm of “okay” to rig up a pulley/hoist system to LOWER the injured person, depending on their injury or state of consciousness, as long as the rigging is done correctly.
Time is critical even if they were in fall arrest harnesses. The crush injuries to the inner thighs from a jerk during a fall arrest can kill you a couple hours later from internal bleeding.
Feel bad for these guys. Hope they weren’t doing anything stupid though.
