By Justin Strawser
The Daily Item
SUNBURY, Penn. — A contractor fixing signs at the CVS store was left with chest and leg injuries Friday when a crane he was working on snapped and fell at least 15 feet to the parking lot, landing on top of him.
The Williamsport-based 21st Century Signs employee arrived at 9 a.m. to fix a few of the letters on the front of the store and had moved to the digital sign along North Fourth Street. Witnesses said before he reached the sign shortly after 10:30 a.m., the crane snapped and fell over, shooting hydraulic fluid from the truck.
Late Friday, Bill Miller, a manager at 21st Century, declined to give the employee’s name, but said, “He’s doing better.”
“All you heard was a snap,” said customer Bruce Laise Sr., of Sunbury. “It sounded like someone took a steel beam and snapped it.”
Laise, who was leaving the CVS store when the accident occurred, said he watched the man fall legs first and the crane fall on top of him. Laise called 911.
Larry Weiser, a CVS employee, said he rushed outside and turned off the truck to stop the hydraulic fluid from “shooting out the top” of the damaged vehicle.
The man was about 15 feet from the ground when he reached the bottom of the digital sign, Laise and Weiser said.
“He was shaken up,” Weiser said.
The man was taken to Geisinger Medical Center in Danville by the Americus Hose Ambulance Services. Hospital officials must have a patient’s name to provide a condition, so that information was not available Friday night.
Sunbury Patrolman Stephen Mazzeo said the man’s “chest was caved in.” He appeared alert and conscious as EMTs stabilized him and moved him to the ambulance.
A name was unable to be obtained immediately because the man didn’t answer intelligibly, Mazzeo said.
Battalion Chief Ron Rupp, of the Rescue Hose Company, said Northridge Group Inc. was called to clean up the hydraulic fluid and that representatives of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration were investigating the incident.
Responding units included the Rescue Hose, Americus Hose, Friendship Hose, Sunbury Steam, city fire police and the Northumberland County Emergency Management Agency.
Copyright 2017 The Daily Item