WORCESTER, Mass. — With its wheels in the air, the truck on its side and its boom on top of a home and powerlines, a crane of a tree-cutting crew toppled onto a home on Cumberland Street in Worcester Thursday.
“Have you ever heard really big fireworks go off? Kaboom, just like that,” said Ray Elwood, who lives nearby.
“I heard a big boom,” said another neighbor Cindy Peel. “I came out and there’s a truck against the house. So I ran down the street and the crane took out all of our electricity and everything else.”
The lines, however, still had energy, meaning the operator was stuck until crews shut off power.
“There was someone in the crane, but they ended up getting him out,” Peel said. “It took about an hour and a half. He was fine, he had a couple of scrapes and bruises on his face.”
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It happened around 1:30 at the intersection of Cumberland and Castine Streets as the operator was removing trees close to the home. No one was home at the time of the incident, Worcester Police announced just before 5:30 p.m. Thursday. The operator of that crane sustained “very minor injuries.”
No criminal charges are pending following the crash, police also announced.
“I’m just happy it’s not our house and happy they’re OK too,” said neighbors Pam Choinski and Alec Seymour. “It could’ve been a lot worse for sure.”
The preventative measure was done so that trees would not fall on the property. Now the question becomes was this negligence or from the pressure of trying to lift the trees on a rain-soaked ground.
“OSHA will be doing an investigation as will some state agencies involved in professional licensure of this kind of thing to ensure the grounds and all these procedures were followed,” said Worcester Police Lt. Sean Murtha.
“It’s just scary, the ground is really soft,” Elwood said. “That thing just sunk in four or five feet.”
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