(By Greg Rourke) – Some incredibly skilled operators of yellow iron have been featured on these pages often. As Brian puts it, “They are called operators for a reason.” No question, but sometimes it involves more than just skill, sometimes it takes great big huevos as well.
A common misconception is demolition usually involves a wrecking ball or explosives. While it makes spectacular video for reality television, the truth is most demolition on tall buildings is done by excavators and skid loaders on top of the building. They wreck a floor, using debris to build a ramp down to the next floor. Hydraulic hammers on backhoes do the wrecking, and skid loaders push the material over the edge. Once in a while it doesn’t go according to plan.
Here we have a situation in downtown Beijing, China. They knock a wall over the edge, but rebar embedded in the concrete keep it dangling about seven stories above terra firma. What to do? Have a worker hang on to the hoe, dangle him over the edge, and hand him the ol’ smoke wrench. Problem solved. It appears this wasn’t the first time they’ve done this either, as little head scratching was involved.
So where the heck was OSHA? Oh right…China.
OSHA we don’t need no stinking OSHA!
In order to level some newly laid concrete, I was placed in the back bucket of a JCB and dangled in the middle whilst I smoothed it off with a float – but I was safely on ground level!
HSE we don’t need no stinking HSE!
That’s thew same as OSHA in the UK but a hundred times worse!
Just another day at the office…..at least it looks like he wore a safety harness.
That’s what I was thinking.
Because a wrecking ball would be too easy
That’s called getting s*** done. If an OSHA type of organization showed up in China, construction would slow to a crawl just like in the US. It took CalTrans 4 years to add one lane of the 405 freeway 7 miles long. The Chinese built an 50 mile long freeway in 8 months.
I don’t see a big problem – after all he had a hard hat on.
He also appeared to have work boots on rather than thongs (Japanese safety boots) and the guys on the ground look like they hosing so as to keep the dust (possibly asbestos) to a minimum.
I’d like to see the part were the guys pulled the old rock paper scissors to decide who goes over strategically placed on the hammer.
Good for a laugh