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That's why some experts say there's a need for better regulation for crane operations.
Mitch Charles, general manager of Atlantic Marine Construction, saidthis week that one of his company's cranes was being operated at Palmetto Bay Marina and was tugging on a piling that had snapped off earlier. That meant an employee had to wrap a cable around the lower part of the broken piling under water. The cable either slipped off or the piling shattered, catapulting the arm of the crane backward onto two boats, Charles said. The boats were badly damaged, but no one was hurt.
However, there were deadly crane collapses in March and May in Manhattan. There were also two crane-related deaths in May in Miami, and four workers died when a mobile crane fell in Houston last month.
Those collapses sparked the debate about crane safety, with specialists saying an increase in crane usage demands stricter training standards.
Dan Schultz, the owner of Atlantic Marine, said Friday the Palmetto Bay incident wasn't comparable to problems reported in other parts of the country. "It's nothing like that," he said.
He refused to say whether the crane's operator was certified or when the crane was last inspected. "That's for the insurance company to figure out," Schultz said.
Meanwhile, experts are trying to figure out how -- and why -- these accidents are happening.
"I contend that (the accidents are) due to the real excess of construction activity in the U.S. in the last three or four years," said Bernard Ross of the engineering and scientific consulting firm Exponent in Menlo Park, Calif.
Ross, whose specialty is heavy equipment and crane failure, said, "There's ... a very large increase in the number of cranes that are on job sites."
And, with the spike in crane use, there's a resulting lack of workers qualified to operate the machines, Ross said. There is no evidence the crane operator in Monday's local accident was not qualified.
National research on accidents, based on data collected by the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration, shows that from 2000 to 2006 there's been an average of 78 crane-related deaths a year in the United States.
However, those numbers downplay the extent of crane problems, according to Tom Barth, a Goose Creek crane inspector and operator who also investigates collapses.
OSHA only tracks failures that result in fatalities or multiple injuries. Close calls like the incident at the Hilton Head marina aren't counted.
Barth said there's a need for stiffer regulation. In South Carolina and 34 other states, crane operators are not required to be certified. He said that too often workers are learning on the job.
In South Carolina, there has not been a crane death in the last four years for which the federal government keeps statistics.
Construction company officials have opposed regulation, saying companies already adhere to high safety and training standards.
Still, Barth said the state shouldn't wait until a deadly accident occurs.
"You can drive down any highway in South Carolina," and see cranes violating one OSHA standard or another, he said.
