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Of all the possible Ironworker Injuries, this one takes the cake!
05
Apr
Apr
I spent many years hangin Iron. Along the way I have seen some bad injuries and I have heard tales of even worse. Me personally, I never had anything too major as far as injuries go. I did have a couple close calls though, let’s go down the list:
- Went in hole 15 feet after stepping off a bundle of deck onto an icy beam. Unfortunately for me the concrete guys were keeping the ground heated by blowing heated air into some tarps that were suspended off the ground by vertical rebar. One of those rebar ran up the inside of my leg and stopped about an inch from the old twig and berries.
- Had a 200 ton friction crane boom free fall onto my partner and me after the boom clutch ran from water and grease that had entered the clutch assembly over the weekend. The boom missed me by a couple feet. I’ll never forget that sight!
- I rode a beam line to the ground. The columns only had two anchor bolts at the base. That was back before subpart R made two anchor bolt columns illegal.
I had several more near death experiences. If you have been an Ironworker for any amount of time I am sure that you have a ton of your own stories. There are two types of Ironworkers in this world, those that have had accidents and those that are going too.
I was always very safety conscious when it came to two things though, my fingers and my crown jewels! That’s why when I read this interview today it really stuck with me!
Stay safe brothers, and watch out for the twig and berries!
I was connecting at the Utah county conversation center. hung three ballrooms with 120′ trusses first floor weighed 35,000-37.000,each, second floor weighed about 17,000 each, and roof were 5,000-7,000each, but the last one weighed around 12,000, and it was built different like a big bar joist and welders rolled it a couple times adding 2,000 more lbs of bent plate n the 40 other joist were built strong,and we’re just fine. the tower crane picked this last truss got it up right over my head. I grabbed the tag line and felt it pop, looked up n seen lucky opposite side chocker n shackel flying through the air. i couldn’t go nowhere, could just lean right, and it dropped missing me by a inch and just destroyed the truss we’d just say then went down another leval, smashing bundles of deck and beams. When it can to a stop i looked down and my lanyard wasn’t even tied off to the cantanary line. I was and is so lucky. people at the coffee shop across the road started wehooing. i was like YEAH. I didn’t die it’s amazing. love the life of a ironworker. local 27