Mr. Sandoval was in the process of attaching a pile driver to the tip of a crane boom as it lay on the ground between two freeway overpasses in Mountain View, CA.  Unexpectedly, the crane operator started to raise the boom tip.  Mr. Sandoval jumped from the boom and broke his arm.  Mr. Sandoval claimed that the accident was caused by inadequate lighting, inadequate communications, and an inability of the crane operator to see what was happening.

We investigated & reconstructed this accident; this included a detailed lighting and visualization study.  We inspected incident scene at night and measured available lighting levels with and without similar construction lights.  We created 3D models of the scene with photo-realistic lighting using ray-tracing technology.  We analyzed luminance and illuminance based on test data.  And we determined that the crane operator had a perfectly clear view of the situation and had reacted properly to hand-signals given by Mr. Sandoval’s foreman.