Yesterday morning, dozens of workers scrambled over pieces of the crane that were sprawled behind the future site of the 24-Hour Fitness center. The Maryland Department of the Environment was called in to clean up hydraulic fluid that spilled from the crane, and inspectors with the state's office of Occupational Safety and Health were investigating. On the side of the crane, the operator's mangled compartment sat askew.
Jeff Scammell, a glazier working on the windows of a nearby building, said that he hurried to the accident scene after hearing sirens and helicopters. "It looked like something snapped and it crushed the little carriage," he said. "The whole arm dropped and there was hydraulic fluid everywhere."
It was unclear how many people had been working on the crane, which has an estimated capacity of 100 tons, or what caused it to malfunction. Employees of Maxim Crane Works, a Bridgeville, Pa., subcontractor that owned the crane, declined to comment and directed all questions to a lawyer.
The company was cooperating with authorities and was conducting its own investigation into the accident, attorney Scott Phillips said, declining to comment further.
Maxim, which has 35 locations around the country, was fined $14,000 and cited by the U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration for two serious violations in a May accident in Missouri, government records show. A 23-year-old construction worker was killed and three others injured when the boom collapsed while it was being lowered, according to news reports.
The $400 million town center in Annapolis includes luxury condominiums and apartments, offices, a Target store, restaurants and boutique shops that were recently completed or are still under construction. Calls to Greenberg Gibbons Commercial, which is developing the property, were not returned yesterday.
An expert in cranes said that accidents such as yesterday's are rare but can be caused by inexperienced, overworked or hurried workers.
"In this day and age, the crane is a very structurally safe piece of equipment," said Donald O'Rourke, the Eastern Regional Director of the Crane Certification Association of America. "But the more that you don't maintain the crane and don't have experienced workers operating it, the more likely it is that it's going to topple down."
