Man dies after crane falls onto M25 in Buckinghamshire
A man has died after a crane crashed onto the M25 in Buckinghamshire from a site alongside it, police said.
The man, who is believed to have fallen from the crane, died at the scene.
Emergency services were called just after 09:20 BST after reports the crane had fallen onto the anti-clockwise carriageway, between junctions 16 and 15.
One lane is closed and a Thames Valley Police spokeswoman said it was likely to remain so “for some time”.
There are currently queues back to junction 18, the A404, and delays of about one hour.
A spokesman for the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) said it was aware of the incident and was making inquiries.
He said two HSE inspectors were on their way to the scene.
bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-be … s-22779523
Could that be the place after give peas a chance bridge anti clock? I see cranes and cherry pickers in that yard moving about all the time.
That’s fell across my mates lorry 
Steve
Blimey, I bet your mate was sweating then! Tell him not to buy any lottery tickets this week, I’m assuming he’s okay with that remark.
neversweat1:
That’s fell across my mates lorry
Steve
What your mate was on the hard shoulder was he 
bald bloke:
neversweat1:
That’s fell across my mates lorry
Steve
What your mate was on the hard shoulder was he
Can you not see the truck parked outside the depot …! WTF!!
I took a note of the model number and looked it up on the interweb and found manufacturers site - lots of pictures - but no stabiliser arms visible. They’re supposed to have a 21m reach to the side 
All I can think of is that the base unit must be extremely heavy and I know they can be moved around by the operator from working height but I would have thought that legs could be extended when stationary.
R I P.
That particular model weighs 20 tons, no way it would topple over on its own. Some kind of catastrophic failure of something.
bald bloke:
Not seen any video .
You don’t need to see any video - The still photos in the links already posted here clearly show the boom of the cherry picker lying across a truck (the truck was not on the Motorway at all).
Driver-Once-More:
Man dies after crane falls onto M25 in Buckinghamshire bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-be … s-22779523
It wasn’t a crane and its not designed to be used as one either. Its a MEWP (Mobile Elevating Work Platform) or AKA a cherrypicker.
Socketset:
I took a note of the model number and looked it up on the interweb and found manufacturers site - lots of pictures - but no stabiliser arms visible. They’re supposed to have a 21m reach to the side
All I can think of is that the base unit must be extremely heavy and I know they can be moved around by the operator from working height but I would have thought that legs could be extended when stationary.
R I P.
They don’t have stabiliser arms or legs per se they are not like mobile cranes. They are retractable axles as they are designed to be moved potentially anywhere at anytime. The axles are the stabiliers when extended and then retracted when they are closed up again to be moved somewhere new or transported on the road.
What a sad thing to happen to that poor man and the family and friends they have left behind. Like a lot on here I’ve worked on and around them measuring up structures, however even wearing a harness or landing in grass (that some have said may have saved them) wouldn’t save you on that extrememly high and sad fall.
We’ll have to wait for the HSE to investigate and report rather than speculating what caused it. The HSE and police will find the answers out in the end and hopefully prevent it happening again to somebody else.
C
Yes these things are surprisingly heavy even the smaller ones. A Z135 is a monsterous thing, they can be moved driven from the basket although once you have lifted the basket a short amount then they will only creep along.
I cannot begin to imagine the horror for the poor soul as it started to go over, the feeling of helplessness and impending doom would be unbearable. I don’t suppose that he’d have fared any better free falling from the basket, but being harnessed and clipped in certainly wouldn’t have helped.
His colleagues will have the rather unpleasant task of trying to do the same job in the same place with that memory and I don’t imagine it was very pleasant for anyone trundling around the M25 either.
They are super heavy for keeping them stable and trying to create a low centre of gravity, when actually being used high in the air.
Then you have the wind speed restrictions and what you can carry on board weight wise and also all the auto cut offs to prevent you actually overturning. They are very sopishcated pieces of plant with a lot of sensors on tilt, slip, torque of wheels and revs of the engine turning each wheel individually assessing what each one is actually doing and achieving. And then their human operators are incredibly skilled as they are usually used in rough terrain, to get you in some extremely awkward situations/locations and usually not on tarmac or concrete laid for a FLT either.
I’ve only been up the highest in a 15m boom on a rough site and we spent more time up in the air going nowhere as the wheels locked off due to the terrain setting off the sensors. That 4 hour shift took forever and I reckon I lost a stone in sweat with every large jolt we hit, even with a harness. I’ve only be a passenger in them 5 times now and hated every time. Give me an aeroplane or scaffold rather than one of these.
I could not imagine the impending doom that poor man felt either and knowing there was absolutely nothing left you could do to reverse the situation.
I’ve heard the BS on site, don’t wear a harness (when you ask them to wear one before they go up or see them taken off at height and waiting to see them later), the reasons usually given so you can jump out at the last moment etc, etc, unfortunately they forget gravity applies to them too and you’ve got to stay in the basket when bouncing about or god forbid it does go over. Some of the attitudes to heights are just like old school scaffolders too but that’s another subject.
I imagine that man did everything by the book and something went very wrong.
Those left behind after witnessing that, who have to start again tomorrow, will have to have a lot of support and courage to get in and do it all over again. It’s hard but they will do it, my thoughts are with you too.
Could happen to anyone of us in any industry at any time. And they say H&S is a waste of time and pointless… 
No-one but no-one deserves this end regardless of how hard you think you are.
God speed sir, you didn’t deserve this end and neither did your family! 
C
We all ■■■■■ and moan about unnecessary H&S ■■■■■■■■ but workplace fatalities are thankfully not very common. The H&S stupidity comes in by trying to eliminate all potential causes of injury from paper cuts to grazed knees.
As I was told at length recently when having the audacity to climb a dizzying 4ft up onto the large flat stable platform that is my lorry body to attach the chains to a lighting tower the biggest cause of injury in the construction industry in falls from height. Personally I think that the height bit is taken a bit far (or not far enough) We’ve even had people making a fuss about standing on our lowloader stepframe
Many thanks, Constantine, for all the technical info - they really are sophisticated bits of kit.
Can’t have been good watching the '25 coming to meet you but I guess he wouldn’t have suffered if you know what I mean.
Silver_Surfer:
Blimey, I bet your mate was sweating then! Tell him not to buy any lottery tickets this week, I’m assuming he’s okay with that remark.
Yes my mates o.k. He was loading access platforms out of that depot when the accident happened.
bald bloke:
neversweat1:
That’s fell across my mates lorry
Steve
What your mate was on the hard shoulder was he
There are 2 different links before your post - one shows video the other photos
Hey Sockeset,
Only trying to help, and possibly change the presumptions people have of some plant I’ve worked around in my limited life! Doubt it will change the Daily Mail readers viewpoints of the world and there are too many of them now to ever make a difference!
8wheels has driven them for real, i’ve usually only measured them up to fit in the places we needed them and the necessary radiuses to work on what we needed safely and of course gone up on them as a tourist to look at problems etc.
I sincerely hope it was quick, (I know my own thoughts on it and what we used to say on sites amongst ourselves) but I don’t know for real I am not a doctor or pathologist to know the real truth…I’m not clever enough for that or CSI Trucknet.
C
