A hard-won physics lesson...

[Video Link] ...with a bonus Muttley laugh. (Via WTC?)

Mark Frauenfelder is the founder of Boing Boing and the editor-in-chief of MAKE and Cool Tools. Twitter: @frauenfelder. Come and hear Mark speak at the ALA conference in Chicago on July 1.

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http://pulse.yahoo.com/_J5DCFJNBJQTAZHPSWPUX6EQQFE Jack

Idiot. I’ve used the much smaller sizer-lifts and you always must where a harness. This guy is using something much bigger [thus more dangerous] and yet he has no safety harness. He’s lucky he was not thrown completely out. :<
HDN

I’ve been in the biggest and smallest of these types of lifts and every one of them says the same thing: you must wear a harness. Even with it, you could still get hurt or killed. His best bet would have been to swing the boom 90 degrees to the direction of motion.
- ocker3
  
  I was trying to figure out if he could have reduced the amount of movement by having the basket higher or lower, but you’re right, the only really effective way would be to reduce the overall movement of the arm, which would only be possible by swinging it to the side (I didn’t know that was possible).
- http://profiles.google.com/joshuabardwell Joshua Bardwell
  
  I wonder how he got the dang front wheels off the barge. I suppose he could have elevated the boom and then the drop would have thrown the bucket down instead of up, and he… I don’t know… absorbed the shock with his legs? Anyway, whatever he did to get the front wheels off the barge, he could have possibly done by swinging the boom around 180 degrees and doing the same thing.
  
  Swinging the boom around 90 degrees to the side would reduce the movement of the arm, but I would worry that, with all that weight to the side, as soon as the rear wheels start to break loose, the whole thing will tip. Imagine the boom is rotated to the right side. What I can imagine happening is, the right wheel breaks loose first because of the extra weight to that side, the right side comes down, maybe the bucket bottoms out on the ground, maybe not. Then the left wheel breaks loose and the entire thing comes down. Because the right side was lower than the left side, when the entire thing levels out, you get another “toss” just like this.
  
  All in all, just build a fucking ramp like you’re supposed to.
eviladrian

I was kinda hoping he’d do a full catapult flight over the lift.
Didn’t Mythbusters do that by running one of these lifts off a container?
heykimy

This is not very funny at all. The operator depicted has no safety equipment whatsoever- this should include harness and hardhat at the minimum. Task training for this machine would go over using the necessary personal protective equipment. Also, going over a drop like that is obviously bad news. If this had happened on my project, this guy would be off the project in an instant.
- Spezz
  
  What if he were your friend or family member? Would you can him then?
  - http://scavenger-ethic.blogspot.com/ scav
    
    I should fucking hope so. If one of my friends or family were similarly “cognitively limited” I would rather fire them than see them kill themselves or someone else.
    It’s bad enough watching some of my family operate a TV remote.
    - Ito Kagehisa
      
      I bet you ten zuleks that guy is a boss, and Muttley is one of his employees.
  - http://profiles.google.com/joshuabardwell Joshua Bardwell
    
    Look, this is such a spectacularly bone-headed move that you’d be doing anybody a favor by making sure that they didn’t have access to heavy equipment. There is so much that is so obviously wrong with this.
- http://twitter.com/incarnedine_v Dan Hibiki
  
  ”Tragedy is when I stub my toe. Comedy is when you fall through an open manhole and die.”
- http://profiles.google.com/joshuabardwell Joshua Bardwell
  
  I think he must have been wearing a safety line. It looks like he is jerked suddenly back at the top of his fall. Otherwise, why wouldn’t he have been thrown entirely.
  
  EDIT: I take it back. I just freeze-framed the video and it doesn’t look like he has a line or harness at all.
- DevinC
  
  The cameraman’s massive gigglefest seemed to me to indicate he had an idea what was going to happen, and didn’t try to warn the operator.
http://twitter.com/LennStar_de LennStar

I thought the guy would step back and the basket down on the ground. Same principle though ^^
Jonathan Roberts

It reminded me of flipping pancakes… Don’t these lifts usually also have hand held controls so you can operate them from the ground?
- HDN
  
  Yeah, there’s a ground control panel on the base, but you can only move the basket around. You can’t roll the unit from the ground, for the obvious reason; you might run your own ass over. A change in terrain elevation like that requires a ramp, a pile of 4×4 posts would work. Or a crane to pick it up and move it over.
  - Preston Sturges
    
    I keep a pile of 4×4 scrap for similar reasons
SDurnin

Lousy camera work too.
HDN

Given what I see in the picture, if rotating the basket 90 degrees and driving it off wasn’t viable (and I really don’t consider that the best way, a ramp is best) I’d have rotated the basket 180 degrees and dragged it off with the heavy equipment piece in the left side of the picture.

Lifts like these are great. My buddy rents one with his whole cul-de-sac neighbors and they put up their Christmas lights all in one go; saves them hours, and it’s much safer than doing it from a ladder, especially on the two story homes. But they can be scary as hell. When you’re at max boom, they’re bouncy, like being in a small boat, and then from there: work. Welding from one is a challenge especially, add in wind, and another person in the basket who better hold damn still.
http://web.ncf.ca/shawnhcorey/ Shawn H Corey

Klutz (n): a person who rediscovers the laws of physics every day.
LuvULongTime

Old data => http://www.elcosh.org/en/document/493/d000484/deaths-from-aerial-lifts.html but yeah, an all too common means of achieving death in a boom lift. Sorry, lost a family friend to this type of oscillation on a inclined surface.
- Henry Pootel
  
  QFT…
  “Half of the falls from boom lifts involved being ejected from the bucket after being struck by vehicles, cranes, or crane loads, or by falling objects, or when a lift suddenly jerked.”
http://ae4rv.com/ royaltrux

…and a long time coming and a poor cameraman.
- Mark_Frauenfelder
  
  They should have rehearsed the accident a couple of times before taping it to make it more fun for you to watch.
  - penguinchris
    
    Well… it does seem to me like the cameraman knew this was going to happen (or that something was going to happen, anyway) which I suspect is the source of royaltrux’s complaint. Cameraman was suppressing laughter and wasn’t able to keep the camera pointed at the action.
  - Diogenes
    
    Or edited.
jhex

idiot, for sure, or noob,i’ve ran those exact machines at times, i saw the image and i thought, this guy is going to get thrown.

good thing he was tied off in that basket? wait he wasnt? osha should fine
- http://disqus.com/Kimmoth/ Kimmo
  
  Noob or not, you need to be an idiot to perform this manoeuvre.
  
  Never mind physics, it’s a very basic matter of geometry.
omems

Does anyone know why these lifts weren’t more popular in the past? Unless I just wasn’t noticing them, it seems they have really taken off in popularity over the last 15-20 years. Was there some technological innovation? Or perhaps regulatory changes?
- Preston Sturges
  
  I guess as warehouses have gotten several stories tall you need people up there for all sorts of tasks, and it’s probably a lot less less risky than having people on ladders.
Quiche de Resistance

/muttley’d
http://youtu.be/SKm5xQyD2vE
Ethan Taliesin Houser

Someone fire that cameraman.
ramengirl

And I wonder why my doctor sister has the most interesting stories to tell me from the ER.
Preston Sturges

And remember, Thursdays are Employee Trebuchet Day.
http://johnstonsigns.blogspot.com/ dejoh

I applied decals to the under side of several overhead cranes. After awhile, the lift
feels like an extension of your body. Sort of like mechwarrior. You know its limits.
Sparg

We had a guy drop one of these lifts off a barge into the Mississippi in March while working on the new bridge. I don’t think they’ve found his body yet, though they found his life vest and lift. Nasty surprise down river for some poor schmuck.