JUNE 4, 2015
SPRINGDALE, PA
A Springdale man trimming trees was seriously injured
Wednesday when the aerial bucket he was working from crashed to the ground.
The accident occurred on R.I. Lampus Way, which runs between
the railroad tracks and the United Refineries property, just before 3 p.m.,
according to Springdale Patrolman Derek Dayoub.
The bucket truck is owned by Mike's Tree Service of Upper
Burrell, which was contracted to trim large evergreen trees hanging over the
fence around the United Refineries property.
Mike Seefeld, tree service owner, identified the injured man
as Joe Henry, 41. Henry is Seefeld's brother-in-law.
“He was up in the bucket about 40 feet when the hydraulic
piston on the boom snapped and dropped the bucket,” Dayoub said.
“He was using a chain saw and when (the bucket) came down
the chain saw hit him in head and cut him,” Dayoub said. “They took him to UPMC
Presbyterian. He's got four broken ribs, a collapsed lung, a broken wrist and a
head injury above the right eye.”
He said Dayoub was restrained by a safety harness, which
prevented him from being thrown from the bucket and possibly sustaining more
injuries.
“Thank God he wasn't killed,” said Seefeld, who was not at
the scene when the accident occurred.
“This is the first time in 28 years I've been in business
that anything like this ever happened,” he said.
Cindee Zlacki, who lives about 200 feet away at the corner
of Railroad and S. North streets, didn't see the bucket come down but she heard
it.
“You could hear a boom,” Zlacki said. “I didn't know what it
was. It actually sounded like it blew up, that's how loud it was.”
Seefeld said the truck is a 2006 model and is well-maintained.
“We constantly go over it putting new bolts and hydraulic
hoses on it,” he said.
Seefeld said a federal OSHA inspector who was at the scene
told him to preserve the hydraulic cylinder that powers the boom. He said the
inspector wants to ship it to a laboratory to undergo some metallurgical
testing in an effort to determine what happened.
Calls to OSHA's Pittsburgh office and to its national
headquarters in Washington late Wednesday went unanswered.
Dayoub said he was assisted at the scene by Springdale
Township police and West Deer Police Department's motor carrier inspection
unit.
Source: http://triblive.com