PEOPLE PROFILE

Derek Thomas

Derek Thomas is the owner of Florida based crane school Crane Elite.

Derek Thomas Owner, Crane Elite

WARNING this article contains graphic content that may be disturbing for some people.

Tell us about your experiences in the crane industry?

In March 2018 I had a traumatic experience that changed my soul to the core. It was the middle of a normal day operating a 999 Manitowoc crane. We were off-loading cage components for a form to be placed inside a bridge for an overpass.

I had a foreman named Mike, who was working alongside a young helper. We were in the process of lifting a 35ft cage weighing about 15,000lbs. As we picked up the cage, I noticed there was only one tag line to help control the load. The foreman stepped away in the middle of the lift to look for other rebar components. Suddenly, the load was swinging towards my crane boom. I shouted outside to the young helper to pull the rope. He ran under the load and snatched the rope with such a force that it swung the opposite way towards the opposite side. He snatched again, when finally the foreman took over to control the load. We sat the load down. I can tell you - I was not a happy camper! I summoned the young man over to ask if he was new to construction. He stated it

was his first day. I took the opportunity to coach him as a mentor, discussing not walking under loads or doing things he has no experienced doing. He was appreciative of the advice.

I summoned the foreman Mike over, who I had worked with for two years and questioned him about teaching his people safety around cranes. He laughed and told me, “Yeah, yeah, I know, I will talk to them!”. And that was that, the day finished.

The very next day I had to operate another crane next door while another operator took over my usual crane for the max cage lift of 40,000lb, which they had assembled the day prior. I was not present, but I was later told the team attempted the cage lift and during the lift one end caught onto the rebar rack. The foreman Mike was in charge. He climbed under the load to dislodge the rebar that was catching. Once freed, the force caused the 40,000lb load to fall on Mike.

When I saw the commotion, I ran over and found myself in a surreal scene. The cage was on top of Mike, his insides were coming out his mouth, and his chest was as flat as a pancake. It was surreal to the point it traumatized me forever.

We are so sorry you had this experience. What did it teach you and how did it change you?

By this time in my career, I had 30 years’ experience. It became numb to me, with all the preaching to management about putting inexperienced individuals in positions to do dangerous jobs. The education at both a site level and management level was simply inadequate and a man paid the price of his life for it.

Now I can preach until I’m blue in the face about safety. A big part of this is ensuring everyone in the crane industry, at all levels, fully understands how cranes work, how to operate a crane, plan a lift, key risks and mitigation strategies. I strongly believe that until management takes a class on crane theories, we will repeat some mistakes again and again.