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Crane Topples at Trinity River Pump Station

By BJ Austin

http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/kera/local-kera-751489.mp3

Dallas, TX – City of Dallas and federal safety investigators are asking questions after a crane toppled at a Trinity River pump station this morning, injuring two workers. KERA's BJ Austin reports Dallas-Fire Rescue officials say it could have been a lot worse.

The crane was hoisting a new 18,000 pound pump into the air to be installed through the roof of the levee pump station, near Inwood and Conveyor. Sherrie Lopez with Dallas Fire-Rescue says a weight imbalance apparently sent the pump crashing onto a pickup parked next to the small pump station and upended the crane on the other side of the building. Two workers were injured.

Lopez: One is just going to have some sort of laceration to his head. And the other, initially we thought both of his legs were broken. I think it's just an ankle issue at this point. Given the magnitude of what happened, and the amount of people working around there, we're very fortunate that there were just two injuries, and they've turned out not to be as major as we thought they would be.

In June, a crane accident killed a worker at a construction site next to the Stoneleigh Hotel in Dallas.