Are construction crane fatalities officially an epidemic yet? Already this year, people have died in Houston, Oklahoma City, New York City (in two separate accidents) and now Central Texas. And as tragic as those deaths are, the frequency of the calamities is becoming almost as routine as celebrities who can afford chauffeurs being arrested for their own drunk driving. In either case, such events are needless, avoidable and persistent.

The latest such construction crane tragedy occurred Wednesday in Smithville of Bastrop County, about 45 miles southeast of Austin. There, workers were removing steel girders from an old bridge spanning the Colorado River. The idea was to replace the bridge.During the work, the crane doing the heavy lifting became “overloaded” and fell over, knocking two men off of a manlift basket. One fell about 75 feet and died; the other is in an Austin hospital.

Construction crane collapses or other construction accidents are, by definition, preventable. Thus, they don’t represent accidents so much as negligence. Though construction work can be tough and daunting, it doesn’t have to be as dangerous as it’s become due to ineffective regulations governing construction cranes, which have wildly varied standards for operational safety.

That means the contractor who’s doing the job, or the company which leased and provided the crane, could be to blame for failure of the crane to perform efficiently and its subsequent role in someone’s death. The blame never lies with the crane itself as some wrong-headed notion of “equipment failure.” Instead, it belongs to those who built, provided for or contracted for that equipment, which sadly has turned into a common killer.

Thirty-nine years after America landed men on the moon in one of the greatest engineering feats in human history, this nation hasn’t mastered construction cranes, but instead is mired in a crane collapse epidemic which won’t go away all by itself.

If you or a loved one has suffered due to a construction crane collapse or other construction accident, Jim S. Adler & Associates can help.

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