Smokestack falls on track hoe, driver survives

[ScoutmasterRick]

Link with video: [video]http://www.waff.com/clip/12027423/raw-avondale-smokestack-falls-in-pell-city-excavator-driver-survives[/video]

Smokestack falls on track hoe, driver survives

PELL CITY, AL (WBRC) -

A 100-year-old smokestack set for demolition in Pell City fell onto the track hoe that was attempting to tear it down on Tuesday morning.

"Oh no! No no no no no no no!"

A woman's voice shouting that could be heard over the crowd, as a brick and mortar smokestack fell on top of a track hoe in Pell City Tuesday.

The driver of the track hoe, Tim Pfifer, was not injured. City manager Brian Muenger said the back of the track hoe protected him until someone could move bricks to free him from the wreckage.

It capped a more than two hour effort to bring down the former Avondale Mills smokestack, built more than 100 years ago along with the textile mill and warehouse that once occupied the site just off Highway 231.

The smokestack was supposed to come down at 9 a.m. and motorists were advised to avoid that area during the time. But that charge--and a second one an hour later--failed to bring down the structure, though it did appear to sway a little after the second explosion.

 

[jerrybob]

Glad he's OK. I bet he had to change his shorts once they got him out.

 

[drizler]

Sseems to me that a couple of sticks of dynamite would the safe and sensible way to go about something like that. Theres just no way you can be sure which way something like that will go.....

 

[Helitech]

Saw that on my Facebook Everything Attachments feed. That scared a bunch of people to death!

 

[rd_macgregor]

That story reminds me of this one from a few years ago.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ll-c8JBWVvs
Even professionals get it wrong sometimes; "hold my beer and watch this" amateurs are just asking for disaster.

 

[ScoutmasterRick]

That story reminds me of this one from a few years ago.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ll-c8JBWVvs
Even professionals get it wrong sometimes; "hold my beer and watch this" amateurs are just asking for disaster.

The same thing happened in both cases. The equipment operators broke through the structure on the equipment side. The break acted like a face cut on a tree, and the structures fell in the direction of the break.

 

[Industrial Toys]

There's lots of that stuff on You Tube. Just makes you shake your head. Bet in most cases it's not the operators own equipment. Easy to wreck a hundred grand piece of equipment that doesn't belong to you.

 

[woodlandfarms]

Some drone footage just went online

Here's the Drone Footage of That Smokestack Demolition Gone Horribly Wrong

 

[MHarryE]

He is an operator who really knew his machine. Excavator cabs are like emergency capsules being strong enough to withstand multiple rolls of the over 40 ton excavator he had. The ROPS and FOPS tests are really something to see. The sickening videos to watch are the ones where the operator in an incident like this bails out of the protective capsule only to be squashed like an ant. I like the interviews I have seen of this operator immediately after the incident. Shook up because it had to be a scary event but he pretty calmly said he knew was to stay in the cab which is built to withstand this.

 

[leonz]

I guess he was in no hurry to contact the folks
at Controlled Demolition Incorporated to do the
job.

SO many mistakes were made with this job its not even funny.