Ivers Sims became the most famous crane operator in the world back in April, but few would envy the ordeal he had to endure in order to earn global media attention.
On Monday 12 April Sims was in his cabin, 67m up a Peiner SK400 tower crane in Atlanta, Georgia, when fire broke out on the construction site below. At first there appeared to be no danger to the tower crane operator, but fierce winds helped the fire grow rapidly and Sims was soon trapped. When it became too hot in the cabin, Sims climbed along the counterjib and perched on the concrete counterweight.
For an hour and a half he waited as the Atlanta fire service tried to combat the flames. All the while, the drama was being shown live on television, and – Ivers couldn’t even have guessed it – his wife Maralind was back home watching events unfold with their three children.
“I just dropped to my knees”, she told reporters when asked how she reacted to discovering her husband in such a perilous situation.
To anyone who watched events unfold on television, or has seen the footage since, it was one of those rare moments of compelling theatre captured live.
The Atlanta fire service has no helicopter of its own, so an appeal was broadcast which resulted in the state’s Department of Natural Resources sending over a helicopter normally used for putting out forest fires. The pilot, Boyd Clines, had done this kind of thing before. “I used to pluck Special Forces teams out of Laos and Cambodia,” he said later.
The real hero, many observers judged, was 30-year-old firefighter Matt Mosely, who was winched out of the helicopter on a 25m cable and lowered towards Sims, who was passed a harness and pulled away.
“I told him his boss sent me up so he could knock off early,” Mosely told reporters.
Sims himself displayed bravery too, and not just through the stoic way in which he coped with the ordeal. He could have got down the crane before the fire got out of control, he tells Cranes Today, but chose to stay up in case the crane was needed.
Sims recalls: “By the time I looked out they were all running to get water hoses and I saw the smoke. I had time to get down but thought they might need the crane for the fire. You never know what they might need to contain the fire – that’s why I stayed up.” Once he was on the counterweight, and clearly trapped, Sims got a call from his superintendent on the radio telling him that a helicopter was on its way to pick him up.
A deep thinking and religious man, Sims turned to God to help him get through it all.
“I prayed hard about twice,” he says. “After I found that I couldn’t get down I prayed. Then, when the helicopters came by and couldn’t get close enough because of the heat, I prayed again.” Only the length of rope, with firefighter Mosely suspended from it, enabled the rescuing helicopter to get close enough to effect a rescue. Suspended from the rope, the pair appeared to travel for miles, says Sims, as they were lifted to a safe landing place. In fact it was only about 1,500m.
“He gave us a smooth landing,” Sims says of the pilot. “I was fixing to get in my car and go home, but the paramedics grabbed me.” A quick visit to the hospital revealed that he was fine.
He appears quite relaxed discussing the whole episode, coping well with the attention. Sims has not been up a tower crane since his dramatic rescue, but he is due back up one at the end of this month.
It is not that he has been avoiding getting back into the saddle, as some might after such an experience. It is just that his employer, Gay Construction, has not had the work for a tower crane operator for a few weeks. The next time he is needed, he is back up a tower crane, and that day is getting close. In the meantime he has been on other duties.
“I’m not worried. In fact, I’m kind of anxious to get back up there. It’s fun. I read the bible a lot and I can sit up there and meditate.” He likes to get away from all the bustle and noise of life down below, he says.
His desire for a quiet life even informs his preferred choice of crane. “I’ve operated all of them,” he says, “Peco and Leibherr mainly. I like the Peco better. The Leibherr is a little noisy in the cab. The Peco’s quieter.” In a few weeks Ivers Sims will be able to escape from all the fuss and media attention once more and return to the quiet life he prefers – up a tower crane.