15.07.2008

Two trees tip two cranes

A homeowner in Altamonte Springs, near Orlando, Florida called in a tree trimming company to remove what she considered to be dangerous trees, from here back garden, prior to the hurricane season taking them down.

Yesterday the company, Gator Tree Service, brought in a three axle Link Belt truck crane to lift the tree limbs over the house. They amazingly told the residents of the house to stay in side while they did so.

Then the crane with a good deal of its main boom extended suddenly tipped as its outriggers sank into the soft lawn causing the crane to tip over, the boom came crashing down onto the house causing extensive damage.
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The fallen crane

What happened next is quite remarkable, rather than check that none of the residents were hurt, all 10 tree workers jumped in their vans and drove off!

The crane driver was left in his cab still shaken, he eventually managed to climb out and said that everyone had gone apart from his supervisor who told him to “get out of there” and so the two drove back to their yard. Only after recovering his composure did the crane driver return to the scene.

By then the police had turned up and started an investigation.

And another tree claims another crane

Last week storms in South Carolina blew over a huge red oak tree onto a house in Lexington South Carolina, the tree crashed through the roof completely wrecking one of the children’s bedrooms, fortunately the 10 year old was not in the room at the time.

Yesterday a boom truck arrived to remove the tree, the crane lifted the tree trunk out of the house, swung it over the roof and then the family inside the house heard a massive crash as the crane tipped over with the boom smashing through another part of the house in to the bedroom of the girls 19 year old brother, who had just left the house to take part in a local concert.

The crane operator was reported to have been injured in the accident, but his condition is unknown.