That time I forgot to check the overhead clearance on a job in Pittsburgh

Last Tuesday I was setting up a 60-foot crane near a old mill building, and I totally spaced on the power lines running between two poles. The boom brushed a low-hanging wire and sparked like crazy for about 5 seconds before I hit the emergency stop. My foreman came running over yelling 'what the heck did you do?!' and we had to call the power company to shut it down for an hour. After it was all cleared, the foreman made me rerun the safety checklist three times before letting me back on the controls. Has anyone else had a close call with overhead lines that made you rethink your whole routine?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_keith14h ago

@richard_shah you really think a little sparking needs all that orange tape and rubber mats?

richard_shah1d ago

Duquesne Light took three and a half hours to kill the line on a job we had back in 2018. Same setup, 60 ton crawler near the old J&L steel site. The worst part wasn't the sparking, it was the foreman making everyone stand around for an extra hour after the power company said it was safe, just to prove a point about communication logs. What got me was how nobody thought about the rubber mats. We had them sitting in the truck the whole time, standard for any lift near live stuff, but nobody grabbed them because the line "looked dead" from the ground. Now I tape a bright orange flag directly on any overhead wire I can reach before the crane even leaves the trailer. Makes the crew look at it twice.