A man operating a crane was critically injured yesterday after being crushed by falling machinery while working in the same Annapolis development where a man was killed in a similar accident last year.
The incident occurred as state regulators prepare for a public hearing on stricter safety standards for crane operators.
The 46-year-old man was sitting in a compartment of a crane that was preparing to lift heating and cooling units onto the roof of a gym in the Annapolis Towne Centre when a pulley and other parts tumbled down about 7 a.m., fire officials said.
"During the setup process, something went wrong and some components fell, smashing in the operator's compartment," Anne Arundel County Fire Department spokesman Division Chief Michael Cox said.
Other employees extricated the man, whose name was not released, and he was rushed by helicopter to Maryland Shock Trauma Center in Baltimore, Cox said.
The accident comes 10 months after a piece of a crane being dismantled fell on Denis Umanzor, 44, as he worked on a condominium a stone's throw from the gym. Umanzor, an employee of Miller, Long & Arnold, was trapped 200 feet in the air and had died by the time rescuers were able to reach him.
Crane safety drew national scrutiny last year after two highly publicized fatal accidents. In March, a 20-story crane smashed into a New York City townhouse, killing seven people. Less than two weeks later, part of a crane plunged 30 floors into a two-story Miami, Fla., home, killing two people and injuring five.
After those incidents, James R. "Ron" DeJuliis, labor and industry commissioner for Maryland's Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation and a former crane operator, formed a crane task force to draw up stiffer safety regulations.
DeJuliis said the stricter standards are designed to minimize the likelihood of accidents such as yesterday's.
"We could train every single person involved in the industry to the maximum. ... But there's mechanical failures, there's weather conditions, there's human error. Unfortunately, there's probably always going to be accidents, but I would think that the required training would dramatically reduce accidents. It just makes everybody more aware of what their responsibilities are."
"We wanted to ensure that everybody was trained to meet all the national standards that are prevalent in the industry," DeJuliis said. Maryland does not have standardized training regulations for crane operators, he said.
