A large crane toppled over in Chelsea, Massachusetts, on Tuesday morning, narrowly missing multiple apartment buildings nearby.
The crane fell over on Sixth Street at a construction site at around 7 a.m. Aerial footage showed the crane completely on its side, resting on the metal beams of the structure under construction.
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There are several housing units near the construction site, and luckily, none of them were hit by the toppling piece of equipment.
“The boom of the crane missed the back of the house by probably about 10 feet," Deputy Fire Chief Michael Masucci said.
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Elfego Herrera said he was asleep when he heard a loud boom, but thought it was just the normal sound of the construction next to his bedroom window.
“When I arrived on scene, I saw people looking out the back windows, so I evacuated the house for safety measures obviously,” said Deputy Chief Masucci.
Masucci said that amazingly, the operator inside the cab of the crane was able to get out on his own, and was physically uninjured, although visibly shaken.
“The piece of steel that he was trying to lower was about 30 feet long, big I-beam, the boom just missed the house,” said Masucci. “We would have had people trapped in the house. The alternative we don’t even want to think about.”
OSHA remained on scene, working to determine exactly how this crane collapsed.
