SCDF team rescues injured construction worker from 40m crane

SINGAPORE - A man working on a tower crane found himself suspended 40m up and unable to head down to safety, after injuring his leg in mid-air.

When alerted to the incident at a How Sun Drive construction site on Monday (Sept 7) at 4.25pm, the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) sent in a team of firefighters and members of its elite division, the Disaster Assistance and Rescue Team (Dart) to rescue the worker.

Four Dart specialists scaled a cat ladder to access the crane, before traversing across its narrow arm to reach the injured man, SCDF said on Facebook on Tuesday.

The team secured themselves in place and set up a lowering system with ropes and pulleys.

One of the Dart specialists, who was cross-trained as an emergency medical technician, treated and bandaged the man's wound while up on the crane.

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Meanwhile, another team of Dart specialists on the ground prepared a stretcher and secured it to a rope that the team on the crane had prepared.

Working in tandem, the two teams hoisted the stretcher to where the injured man was, before safely securing him to the stretcher, a video that SCDF posted showed.

One hour into the operation, a Dart specialist on the crane attached himself to the stretcher, which was then slowly lowered to the ground in concert with the other specialists and firefighters who had been deployed.

SCDF said a paramedic assessed the man's injuries before he was taken to Sengkang General Hospital.

This article was first published in The Straits Times.