Ham radio operator looses hand and fingers in tower accident.

Very sad accident and my thoughts are with the op and his family.

 

Very sad indeed, such a tragedy! My thoughts and prayers are with Bearpaw and his Family. This sadly, is another reminder that SAFETY is #1, don't take chances with your life or limbs.

 

I'm glad to hear he's home and hopefully he'll be on the air soon.

An unfortunate, but preventable accident.. if anything good comes out of this hopefully others might think twice about climbing a crank-up tower and choose not to do it. Safety comes first.

 

There's actually a question on the Technician exam about not climbing a crankup tower unless it is in the fully nested condition.

 

I was thinking the same thing. Not much thought given here.

 

Or worse, suing the concrete company for making the concrete so hard.

Agreed.

So....how do we protect against disasters like this in the future?

 

That's even better!! Good one!

First off, sorry about my diatribe above. It really was off-topic to some extent.

Education is key, but not even that will suffice 100% of the time. When I purchased my crank-up, there were all sorts of warnings re: climbing the tower. I quickly learned about crank-ups and the serious problem that can happen should the cable break and one is climbing it. But, what if I had purchased it 2nd hand from someone who shipped it across the country to me and I didn't have all the docs. Assume I knew very little about towers. Out of ignorance I might have injured myself if I went climbing, hypothetically. I am personally a responsible person (I think) and I spend a great deal of time educating myself about things I know little about in order to protect myself.

I hope one day we can learn exactly what was going on in this case in order to help answer your question. Did the tower somehow get stuck and he just HAD to have it working for some reason and chose to climb it, knowing the risks?? Or, did he know nothing about the potential dangers and it never occurred to him there was any risk??

The reality is long as there are humans, we will make mistakes like this even when we know better. I seem to remember an article in QST where the author specifically engaged in defeating safety mechanisms to prevent potential deadly electric shock in order to describe his modification of an amplifier.

As hard as we try, we simply can't prevent all ignorance and will never stop stupidity.

"Hold my beer for a minute and watch this!!"

 

Wow..what a terrible accident. Sounds like he is already on the mend and back on the air. That's great news.

 

Telescoping Tower

Lets not criticize others, its very easy to after something bad happens.
We have no idea what happened, how he had it braced/locked etc.
His bracing may have failed OR
He may have forgotten to lock the sections together.

LIKE I DID!!

The one time you forget and the cable, winch, whatever it breaks. You brace it a hundred times and it won't break.
It was the winch in my case.
I was lucky, 3 fingers on my left hand were crushed between the tower sections when it came down.
It is one of my truly close calls and it scares me every time I think of it. I could have lost both my hands. It is why I use
several jack stands when going under cars. Use 2 straps on every tie down, double lines when only one is needed. A defining moment
in my life when it comes to steel and things that can hurt you.
My fingers hurt for years.
I was 19 years old at the time, I'm in my fifties now and have all 10 fingers and I'm not climbing anything but stairs.

 

Real nice thought, Dave. I think if we all here did that it would go a long way to healing Bearpaw's spirits, as well as his physical injuries. After all, ham radio is a fraternity...we're all brothers and sisters here. Jaw jackin' about how we would have done it differently or sued whomever does little good...(not to mention smart butt remarks about 'one less CW op'. Pretty sick!).
Glad to read you're back on the repeater already, Bearpaw!! Hope I catch you on the bands soon!! Heal up quick!
Very 73....Joe, Crooked River Ranch, OR

 

Sorry,
I only know what was reported on our Tuesday night net. I personally do not know the details. There will probably be more updates on the 7:00 AM KABARA net if you have access to a participating repeater in the Gig Harbor area. If I hear more I will post.
Robin

 

Steve Morris K7LXC has been a tower builder for > 30 years and is author of Up The Tower: The Complete Guide To Tower Construction. He's also moderator of the TowerTalk email reflector. The "K7LXC Prime Directive" says it all:

• DO what the tower manufacturer says to do.
• DON'T do what the tower manufacturer says to not do.

Extrapolating, if the tower manufacturer doesn't say it's OK to do, assume it is not OK to do.

My UST TX-472 lattice telescoping tower came with the "raising fixture" that allows me to tilt the nested tower. It allows me to work on any part of my tower/antenna system with both feet on terra firma. If the tower didn't come with the raising fixture, I would've purchased it separately.[HR][/HR]
My sympathies go to Bearpaw and his family.

 

Ahh, I see. Thanks for updating me.