Word around the campfire this morning is:

Big yellow boom crushed a hoseman because he was too close to a ditch with an outrigger.

IF & I SAY IF this is true, it is a shame. When the ACPA set the (1 to 1) rule, which for you non members is one foot back for every one foot of depth MINIMUM,,,, it knew what it was about. The load from your outrigger is transfered thru the soil in a 'cone' @ a 45 degree angle. And to add to the problem the ammount of dunnage you use under your outrigger becomes very important in this case. The less cribbing you use, the greater the soil pressure and..... THE FURTHER BACK YOU NEED TO SET UP.

I hope that it turns out that "This was just a drill" and nothing happened. Even so, it is a reminder that we need to pay attention all the time. There is no prize for allmost good enough. The price for non compliance is too high to pay.

1. Check with the super'

2. Look at the set-up

3. Pay attention to the soil conditions

4. Know your pump, and the down force

5. Do it right.................. we know better!!!!!

;~(

I will not be fooled.

The one to one rule is a MINIMUM.

The one to one rule is also WHEN ALL LOAD BEARING OUTRIGGERS ARE SUPPORTED BY THE PROPER AMMOUNT OF CRIBBING; as defined in the ACPA literature.

THINK..................................... LIVE & LET LIVE

I have a question for all of you big boom operators:

When is it OK to boom over an "outrigger pad only" set-up?

No prize for a correct answer; there should be NO incorrect answers................... or set-ups.

Yes, it did happen.

This subject seems very personal. but if at all possible i would like to hear or read the whole story of what happend.. i am a young operator (21) and have been running a pump for a little under a year. even though i have been around pumps my whole life, because my father owns the company. I still have A LOT to learn. and i like to read as much as possible. i guess so i can be as good as of a pump operator as some of you guys.

bob love you like a brother but think you are a bit out of line with your comments we must keep the industry in mind and we all know this was a big loss

You are correct. Sorry!

That is so sad, is there a follow up on this? I am sure the courts will be dealing with this for some time now.

I do believe that more people should be going to jail for negligent practices. Put one of these big wigs in jail for a year or two and i bet things would straiten up.

No harm no foul does not seem to be working very well these days.

Does anyone know where this happened at?  Just wanted to read the story about it?

Joe,

I removed my "rant". But I have a problem with your statement about 'what is good for our industry'.

We are (obviously) not doing a very good job of abiding by our self written safety rules. What would be good for our industry is for all of us to do just that. Since the number one "best thing" is not an option,,,,,,,,,,, how about shining a bright light on the inability to do so.

This individual was shown, over and over, the correct way to do his job by your company and others. His choice was to ignore that educational oportunity and just half-ass it his way. If it was not 100% lazy, poor performance what was it? I know your company does not condone that type of action. I am just calling it what I think it was; piss-poor judgement and lack of following the accepted ACPA procedure. Those rules are not in place to follow when the mood strikes you. They are in place for every day all of the time.

That some innocent individual had to pay the ultimate price for his sloth is, in my opinion,

CRIMINAL!!! and should be delt with in the appropriate court of law.

THAT is what I think is good for our industry.

Robert B. Sanderson jr

Marcus,

You missed the point. The training had been done. The safety rules had been gone over and over. The ACPA material had been read and reread. The company had lived up to that part of the bargain.

The oporator, of his own volition, chose to not comply. It is not always a matter of training.

It is like the horse that 'you can lead to water and not make him drink.

It was not an accident; it was a choice.

That is me, old rediculous Bob. What can I say I am just simple minded. I don't intend to have a peeing contest here. I know what happened.

question

if when you go to the lake and there is a sign that says "CAUTION !!! Thin ice. If you go on the ice you will fall thru and get cold and wet!!!

So,,,,,,,,,,,,, you go on the ice and you fall thru.

Is it an accident or a choice?

nuff said

By refusing to follow the procedures for safe set up and operation of the unit as per the manufacturer, ACPA as well as his employer, the operator did choose to fataly injure the hoseman.  This operator has been running a machine this size for several years and is (or should be) familiar with the unit.  His employer requires all of it's employees to become certified thru the ACPA and stresses the importance of following the guidelines set forth by the association.  Is this enough?  I personaly think that the certification test is a joke and have been working to create a program that covers more than just common sense safety issues, but it is presently all we have.  The only question I have for his employer is why did they send an operator out by himself who had worked 20 hours the day before and only had 2 hours off prior to returning to duty when there was another qualified operator that had sat home the entire day before?  I know this is true, what I don't know, is this the same operator and machine that came crashing through a parking deck a few months ago because the extension cylinder in the front outrigger failed.  Was the set up questionable during that incident, was he pumping over the same outrigger during this incident?  Regardless, it is the responsibilty of the operator to safely set up and operate the unit he is assigned, that means staying far enough away from an excavation, using the proper amount of dunnage (on a unit this size the supplied pads are NEVER enough) and having the unit level.  I do not understand why it takes an accident of this magnitude to make people realize how dangerous concrete pumping is, and then after a few weeks all is forgotten.  99.9% of incidents are preventable, but the are repeated over and over.  Learn from your mistakes and the mistakes of others.

Having first hand experience working for this company,  I know that the operator has no choice when he is dispatched to do a job.  If you refuse to do a job you will not have your pump tomorrow.  Im not trying to slam anybody,  but after over three long years of this non-sense and operating the largest pump they have I had to move on.  Until this company quits letting unqualified operators, people with little or no training run large pumps this will not change.  If you dont beleive me ask anybody who has spent any time there.  The hard part is you will not find many experienced operators who have stayed working there.  We are way too valuable an assett to waste our talent at such a place.

I agree, it was very poor judgement from management to schedule the operator and from the operator to accept the job.  There are alot of questions that are going to have to be answered during the course of the investigation.  OSHA currently has possession of the unit, but since the incident did not occur on a public roadway DOT wouldn't have cause for an inquiry. But you can bet OSHA is going to find out if it is a "common practice" of the organization to schedule employees when management is aware that by allowing the employee to drive they are in direct violation of federal law mandating hours of service.  This could get very ugly.

Also, everyone needs to stop referring to this or anything like this as an accident.  This was no accident, an accident happens when every possible precaution has been taken into consideration.  This is an incident; and an incident could be avoided if the proper safeguards (that should be in place) had been followed! 

Lets hope so, because until some government agency steps in nothing will be done.  I really don't want to sound bitter, however I would absolutely love it if this company were finally punished for the misconduct that goes on everyday.  They cannot continue to let inexperienced operators go out and operate these sized pumps.  It takes many years to learn to operate a pump of this size, not just the willingness to work ninety hours without time off.  Some day they will finally learn not to send children out to do a grown mans job.

bigstick or should i say bigmouth you talk a lot of s@i% for someone hiding behind a screen name hell let us all know who you are?????? maybe thats the way it should be on the message board we all use names so everybody knows who we are