Crane Climbing Deaths?

September 30, 2015 11:29 AM

I've been watching more of the FAIL/WIN & People Are Awesome videos on YouTube than I should. Many of them contain (by now familiar to everyone) scenes of teenagers hanging one-handed off the top of a gargantuan crane. Are there known deaths from attempts to do that, or something similar? I googled, but couldn't find anything.
posted by OmieWise to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (4 answers total)

Mod note: Couple comments removed; I appreciate the intent of providing an on-point set of links, but if it's going to contain literal footage of someone falling to their death you're going to want to explicitly disclaim that in the link text.
posted by cortex (staff) at 11:50 AM on September 30, 2015 [5 favorites]

Best answer: Falling deaths are a serious risk in any work environment that requires climbing, and there are definitely stats on people injured doing this for a living. For example, fatalities on wireless towers. The way to avoid this is 100% tie-off, but compliance isn't what it should be, and so people die. More generally, here are OSHA reports on fallling injuries.

The CDC also keeps data on deaths by cause. See this PDF for 2013 data (search the document for "falls".)

Climbing anything high enough to kill without fall protection is ridiculously risky, and I can't imagine doing it for pay, much less for fun.
posted by asperity at 12:12 PM on September 30, 2015

Best answer: Previously on MeFi: 1135 Feet, Two Bananas: World's Scariest Selfie (Someone asked there about deaths too.)
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 12:19 PM on September 30, 2015 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Here's one crane climbing death, and another, and another. More here. I'm mostly finding these among other industry accident reports. Not sure who's keeping stats for stunt/thrill climbing deaths specifically, but this sort of thing is why construction sites, wireless towers, and a lot of other tall structures try to limit access.

Bonus: horrifying ladder photo that probably didn't involve any death.
posted by asperity at 4:57 PM on September 30, 2015 [3 favorites]