Trained rescuers from Winchester Fire Station’s Green Watch, part of Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service, used a tower crane erected at a site at Morn Hill, where Morgan Ashurst is constructing a 141-bedroom Holiday Inn hotel, to practice the rescue.
Rescuers scaled the crane to make the rescue from the cab; a procedure used if the operator suffered a heart attack or collapse. Dean Lindeque, senior site manager at Morgan Ashurst, was lowered from the crane by the trained crew members.
In March, East Sussex Fire and Rescue Service carried out a similar training exercise from a 50m-high tower crane at a Morgan Ashurst job site in Brighton, and in October 2007, a team of local firefighters from Durham Fire Station and Hebburn Community Fire Station undertook a similar event at a Morgan Ashurst development in Durham.
“The safety of our entire team is extremely important to us and it was great to work with the fire and rescue service to see how the professionals would come to our aid in an emergency,” said Lindeque.