EVERETT, Mass. — As local and federal officials dive into the cause of a deadly crane collapse in Everett last week, a Denver-based forensic firm gave Boston 25 insight into where the investigation may stand.
Henry Mowry, vice president of engineering at Knot Laboratory out of Colorado, oversees the forensic engineering and visualization firm.
He said they are often deployed independently to investigate accidents as small as property damge, to deadly workplace accidents.
“Complacency can literally be a killer,” said Mowry. “We’re trying to figure out what happened, and what happened could be very large.”
The company reconstructs scenes of accidents and even will investigate material under the microscope to get a better understanding of what may have led up to an incident.
Mowry and his team have looked at crane collapses before, and were recently informed of the deadly incident in Everett that killed two workers.
Officials say the crane fell on two men when one of its cables snapped Friday afternoon.
Mowry continued, “We would be looking at the failure mechanism of the cable. Do we see signs of corrosion? Were there inspections done? When were they last done? When was a load test done?”
The company is not involved in this investigation, but said other firms in the Boston area most likely are taking a closer look as they would.
Everett officials said OSHA was involved in the investigation amidst the government shutdown.
“OSHA investigations are not the fastest, and I’m not saying that as criticism, because they’re very thorough” Mowry told Boston 25 Tuesday. “There’s a lot of industry information out there about the roles and responsibilities of individuals involved all the way down to where people should or should not be during craning operations.”
He said the scene requires, “Complete documentation of the site as it sits. That would be with drones to get aerial views, laser scanners to preserve the site as it sits, and then a slow and methodical process of labelling and documenting everything.”
Mowry finished, “Don’t rest on what seems to be routine. Make sure you’re doing your inspections your checks.”
The red crane a the old Exxon Mobile site in Everett was still lying on its side at the scene as of Tuesday night.
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