Well, I didn’t really intend for Construction Junkie to be filled with a bunch of articles to bum you out, but when dozens of people are injured from a jobsite incident, it’s important for us all to learn from it in order to avoid similar circumstances in the future.
Two cranes collided at a jobsite in Austin, Texas on Thursday morning causing panic on the jobsite and resulting in 22 injuries, 16 of which were transported to the hospital. The good news is that none of the injuries are believed to be life threatening.
FINAL: Structural Collapse incident at 1600 Robert Browning St; #ATCEMS Command advising total victim count of 22, patient count of 20 with 16 patient transports, 3 patient refusals & 3 no patients. #ATCEMS PIO responding to the incident for media briefing.
— ATCEMS (@ATCEMS) September 16, 2020
Reports from Austin Travis-County EMS (ATCEMS) indicate that all of the injuries occurred as workers were trying to flee the site out of fear of a collapse.
The cause of the incident is not yet know, but ATCEMS also confirmed that the two cranes had become entangled. In videos, it appears that the incident involved a tower crane and a crawler crane.
ATCEMS does believes that the bases of both of the cranes are stable, but they are concerned about winds causing both cranes to tip and have initiated the brakes on the tower crane to keep it from swaying. A safety perimeter has been established around the site equaling the height of each of the cranes on all sides in case they do end up falling. KVUE reports the tower crane is 150 feet high.
For a while, reports stated that the tower crane operator remained in the crane even after the site was evacuated in order to provide a secondary form of safety by engaging the manual brake.
According to KVUE, the site that the cranes are working on will be a six-story office building and parking garage.
Unlike many of the crane accidents that we typically see, this one has not ended in extensive equipment and property damage, but injuries still occurred. It’s obviously too early to tell why so many injuries occurred – and I’m not saying this is the reason- , but this may be a good time for your company to evaluate your evacuation plans, as well as making sure that the site is set up with a clear path of egress.
Below you can see raw drone footage of the site and see a press briefing given by the first responders on site.
Shane is the creator of Construction Junkie and an active construction project manager. In his career, he has managed interior remodel projects, site development, construction safety, governmental project compliance, and facility maintenance. He has a strong passion for construction technology and safety, as well as sharing the knowledge or insights he has gained throughout his career.