13.12.2016
Stranded
Two men were stranded in their platform yesterday in a busy pedestrian precinct in Norwich, England and had to be rescued by firemen.
The men were using a truck mounted platform with the name Access Platforms on the boom – it looks like one of the old ES Platforms units that were sold off in early 2011, following the collapse of the company a few months earlier.
While it took some time the two men were rescued by a Bronto F32HDT fire rescue platform, they transferred from one basket to the other and their machine was later recovered. The men were stranded for well over an hour and caused considerable disruption in the street below. One assumes that no one knew how to use the emergency descent system?
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The stranded men
Mike Smith
This is prosecutable under health and safety law for endangering the public at the very least not to mention possible nonconformance to PEWER regulations. Will there be a prosecution? Doubtful!
It's all about competence and familiarisation. It was stressed when I was trained to familiarise myself with the machine and to check the certs are in date and manual is there and is the correct edition before even going in the basket. Also, during the training we were taught to use the emergency lowering controls.
If it was a self drive hire, most, if not all hirers have a handover procedure that the yard or delivery driver goes through to ensure the operator is familiarised if only to protect their asset from damage by negligence.
I am with you Sherm, but someone has to start to take responsibility. I think the Emergency Services should charge for this service. I appreciate the practical problem of having an extra guy, but what about the problems caused when that Emergency vehicle should be somewhere else, for a more critical situation. I know that this sounds harsh, but they need to learn.
Sherm
There is great value in having a trained assistant on the ground who knows how to lower the booms when the mechanical system quits. If they were using a rented unit perhaps a ground person could have called the rent hire company for directions or assistance..