Telehandler tip in Dublin

An incident with a new 360 degree telehandler occurred last week on the site of Dublin’s new children’s hospital in Ireland. We understand that it occurred on Friday, June 14th but cannot categorically confirm this. We have received several photos from the scene, along with various videos and an explanation of what happened.

It seems that the operator of the new Manitou MRT rented from Athboy Plant Hire, was telescoping a loaded concrete bucket into the building, but could not quite reach the point where the concreting crew wanted it without the overload system being triggered. One of those supervising the job managed to persuade the operator to override the overload system to telescope the load just a little bit further in… a few inches turned into almost a metre, which caused it to loose stability, tipping forward. Thankfully the load was fairly close to the ground and landed before the machine tipped too far. But it was left perched on its front outriggers at an angle of around 50 degrees.

Thankfully no one was hurt in the incident and any damage appears to be light to non-existent – depending on how the recovery went. In one video the operator, still in his cab, can be heard shouting at the men on the ground staring at him, saying: “I knew this would happen I told you so, but you wouldn’t listen!” We have left out the expletives.

The main contractor for the project is BAM Ireland. It has provided the following update:
“BAM confirms there were no injuries nor damage caused to building or machine. Following our established protocols, the incident was well responded to, resolved and the area made safe within hours.”

Vertikal Comment

To operators everywhere – do not be cajoled into doing what you know to be wrong. If it goes wrong, as in this case, those doing the persuading will suddenly be busy elsewhere.