2 hurt after boom truck tips over in Brooklyn
Two people were hurt when police say a boom truck tipped over Tuesday in Flatbush, Brooklyn.
The truck's extended crane hit a vehicle and a nearby building on Glenwood Road between Nostrand Avenue and East 31st Street.
Two men were sitting in that vehicle at the time. They were taken to a local hospital with serious injuries, but they are expected to survive, according to police.
Truck tipped over while trying to lift materials to roof, witness says
Officials from the Department of Buildings say workers from New Castle Building Projects were trying to lift a bundle of material to the roof of a building, which houses a law office, but something went wrong, causing the truck to tip over and the crane to come crashing down.
"A loud noise, just boom. Sounded like a car accident, like a big, bad car accident," said a man who works across the street.
The witness did not want to be identified, but said he saw the whole collapse as it happened.
"The guy was trying to operate the machine. It looked like he didn't put out all four of the sticks to hold the truck down," he said.
"It was shaking. The crane part was shaking very much, and the actual van that was holding it, it was, like, rocking," said a witness who was working in a pharmacy nearby.
Good Samaritans helped pull men from van after boom truck crash
Carmen Velazquez, owner of the neighboring Junction Pharmacy, said she knows the two injured men.
"It seemed like one of their legs broke, but I'm not too sure, and another one was really injured. But we pulled them out. Not myself, other people pulled them out, and we got some chairs for them in here and we sat them down until the ambulance came," she said.
She added, "A whole bunch of us went -- my father, my co-worker Marcia, they ran over there. One of my drivers, Sean, also went over there because that's his good friend, to help them out because they had just got the van and they were trying to fix it up."
Police say one of the victims is 35 years old. He had pain in his head and parts of his body. The other man, 43, had an injured leg.
The DOB said a licensed master rigger and a professional engineer were on site Tuesday to determine how to recover and remove the truck and crane. Recovery operations were expected to begin Wednesday.
Truck owners have good track record in NYC
New Castle Building Projects has a good track record in New York City; this incident is the first time they've been hit with violations.
The DOB issued violations for failure to safeguard the public, unsafe hoisting operations and failure to have a certified rigger on scene.
Initially, the DOB said another violation was issued for allowing an unlicensed individual to operate the boom truck, but Wednesday, they said that because he was in the process of getting a license, he was legally allowed to be behind the wheel.
Still, that operator was issued a violation for unsafe hoisting operations.
"You're not supposed to hoist any, what we call load, anything that weighs any weight over a person or an occupied space unless there's enough protection in place for that, so by them hoisting over a car or a bus, that was inappropriate," construction safety expert and president of Site Safety Peter Amato said.
Until November of last year, you did not need a license to operate a boom truck in New York City, but city officials say these types of rollover incidents were happening with some frequency.
Now, if you're using a truck that can lift 2,000 pounds or more, you need a license. So far, 228 people are licensed to operate these trucks in the city.
In a statement, the DOB said:
"DOB engineers and crane inspectors have remained on site at 3009 Glenwood Road, in order to closely monitoring the now completed work to right the fallen boom truck so that it could be safely removed from the scene. Our investigation found that the operator of the boom truck made several critical errors during delivery operations that led to this rollover, and we have issued multiple violations to both the operator and the equipment owner for these unsafe operations. The Department has recently introduced licensing requirements for boom truck operators, a new obligation for these industry professionals that is critically important to ensuring that only those with the proper experience and knowhow are operating these hoisting devices. We strongly encourage the public and our partners in the construction industry to notify the Department immediately about any suspected unsafe or unlicensed boom truck activity here in the city."
The DOB has about 500 inspectors to inspect all buildings and construction sites across the city. They can approach a boom truck operator and ask for a license.
