Crane Failures Have Industry Looking at Hazards Under the Hook

Master rigger Mike Parnell walks up to a rack and picks up what looks like a giant rubber band. In reality, it is a 10-ft-long, 2-in.-wide lifting sling made of thin, yellow nylon webbing. Parnell runs his fingers over the pilled, faded, oil-stained surface. “Your hands will tell you more than your eyes,” he says, as he flips the material over for further inspection. Under the roof of a Chicago-area manufacturing plant, Parnell puts down the strap, wipes his hands on his jeans and concludes that the sling needs to be replaced.

“It’s given its life,” says Parnell, president of Industrial Training International Inc., a Woodland-Wash.-based lift-and- rigging consulting company. He later inspects several other slings inside the factory and fails them, too. Workers might continue to put the slings into service, so Parnell advises someone on the factory floor to get replacements. As Parnell talks, the worker nods his head and then goes back to assembling.