Miscalculated the swing radius on a job site in Phoenix yesterday

I thought I had enough clearance between the boom and a power pole, but the wind caught the load and I came within 6 inches of taking out the transformer. has anyone else had a close call with underestimating how much the load swings in a breeze?

2 comments

2 Comments

danielmartinez7h ago

...and my buddy learned that one the hard way. He was working a site near Dallas and the wind just came out of nowhere. Took the load right into a parked truck, crushed the cab flat. Lucky nobody was inside. Now he won't lift anything over 50 feet if there's even a light breeze.

sean_murray5h ago

The 101 in north Phoenix has some wild gusts that sneak through the canyons. I started using a rope tag line on everything over 30 feet after a similar close call near a substation. My foreman also taught me to check the wind speed on my phone before every pick, not just the weather report from the night before. We also tape a little piece of flagging to the load so we can actually see which way the wind is pushing it before we swing. It sounds simple but it saved me from smacking a billboard last month.