Crane Accidents in a Workplace

Crane Accidents in a Workplace 

Construction sites and similar work places has the most risks and hazards possess, some of them occur naturally and some are induced by people around it (by either employees or employers), so there's that. These construction site accidents that may occur ranges from falling, tripping, up to electrocutions to crane accidents. 

Some of accidents that occur in a workplace happen on extremely rare frequency at some extent, this includes crane accidents. Crane accidents inside a work place occur rarely but when they happen, injuries and outcomes are dire and were highly fatal according to previous reports. From those reports, the most common reason why crane accidents occur is that when the crane makes contact with live power lines and as a result blackout and workers' and people surrounding's electrocution. Other reasons includes when a worker strikes a worker, employees falling down from the crane, cable failure or electricity overloading. 

According to the Center of Fatal Occupational Injuries (CFOI), there is an estimated 44 crane-related fatalities every year in the United States alone. In addition, between 2011-2015, 42% of these crane-induced injuries occurred in private construction industries which involves trade contractors and civil construction as having the most fatal injuries while on the other hand, manufacturing industry accounted for 24% of fatalities. In wider view, 25% of crane injuries that were fatal occurred in construction sites except road constructions, 24% occurred at a factory or a plant, and the minor 8% occurred at road construction site.  

Causes of Crane Accidents 

Given that there are a lot of actions happening in a construction site simultaneously and few of them goes wrong and may cause an undesirable accident. In a crane accident, where it is in fact big and requires numerous of conditions for an accident to happen, it rarely does but if one happened, here are some common reasons: 

• Electrocutions
  
  Mobile cranes usually are involved in electrocution-related crane accidents as when a crane goes boom or a cable accidentally hooked up in a live power line and may cause operator and nearby workers to be affected by the electricity and tend to fall or be exposed to bare electricity and can be fatal if they wore none personal protective gears. 
  
  
• Crane collapse
  
  Most fatal crane accidents are caused by unstable or worn out cables or metals caused by rust or icy surface. On extreme cases, without the provision of assistance of a safety engineer, crane collapses are caused by overloading. 
  
  
• Struck by a crane boom or jib 
  
  Some may workers may avoid the explosion or electrocution from previous events but they are still susceptible for being hit by the crane itself or debris from the explosion of crane. Since a crane is held down by pins that support it and it dismantled upon the explosion, without enough support, it may fall due to lack of support. 
  
  
• Struck by crane loads
  
  Being struck by crane load or the crane hook is the most debilitating and most fatal among all. This usually occurs when the load makes the cable loose or made itself loose from the rigging and fell off people below given that construction items are heavy, this may result in severe sustenance of injuries or even death. 

Injuries Sustained in a Crane Accident

When a crane collapses, the results can be catastrophic given the size of most cranes and the heavy loads they move. Crane accidents commonly result in death or serious injuries, including:

• Broken bones and potential amputations 
  
  
• Traumatic Brain Injuries 
  
  
• Spinal Cord and Neck Injuries

Call your Injury Lawyer

If ever one of your family members or closests friend has been involved in a construction accident who have sustained either minor or significant injuries and even a possible disability because of the employer or a co-worker has shown apparent negligence and recklessness and caused an accident and render the victim to have life-threatening injuries and condition, you can always refer help from a professional experienced injury lawyer to smoothen things out as your hired lawyers can help you decide from their factual and legal advices. 

Ryan LLP is an Ohio based injury lawyer that represents victims of personal injury caused by car accidents, medical malpractice due to medical professional's negligence, and even wrongful death against large companies, agencies and even individuals. We have 40 years of experience doing our service in this field and evidently successful with our civil litigations. Call our office now for free legal consultation.