Humans cause so many mistakes, through ignorance, carelessness or outright
bad decisions.
I was working on a tilt-up 20 years ago in British Columbia. The whole
perimeter wall was about 40 panels. The crane was booked for 3 days.
Usually a small plastic tip is visible at the lifting point, a carpenter takes
a hammer and bar and exposes it, removes the covering plastic from the lifting
hook and then the connection to the lifting cables are completed. Some panels
have only 4 lift points, some 6 and then 8, depending on the size of the panel.
When we were preparing one of the panels we could not find the lifting points
where the plan indicated. The concrete finishing had slightly covered the
plastic indicators. After several minutes we eventually found only 4 lifting
points. The panel was supposed to have 6.
This is where the bad decisions came into play. The superintendent
decided to go ahead with the lift anyway, without telling the crane operator.
These were panels 30 feet long, 15 feet wide and weighing many tons. The crew
guiding the panel knew the risks. Everyone knew the risks except the crane
operator. Myself and another cautious carpenter decided to walk to the other
side of the sight and hide behind a pile of lumber. Just imagine the effect of
a slab of concrete that size falling down onto a slab, not to mention half a
dozen men. It would crush anyone underneath flatter than a pancake and send
bits of concrete debris exploding across the entire site. The lift was
uneventful. The next day the superintendent approached me, knowing how
absolutely p---ed off I was and tried to justify his actions, explaining that
the lift was overbuilt in strength and there was no danger. I told him how
happy I was that he had a degree in engineering. He got it.
This is what should have happened. The crane operator should have been
immediately informed, in which case he would refuse to make the lift. An
engineer should have been called to the site to give us direction in adding
additional lifting points. It would have taken an extra day, but no one would
be at risk. No carpenters would risk death, no wives would have the risk of
their husband being killed, and no kids would have had the risk of no father
for the rest of their lives. Bad decisions for time and $$$$$$$.
I don't know what happened in Warwick, but I hope it wasn't a bad decision
by someone trying to 'speed up the work'. I think someone dropped the
ball somewhere. Just saying.
