'We heard a loud boom'
Photo: Ido Erez
Collapsed crane
Yanon Oppenheim
Man killed in crane accident
Tractor driver killed, 55-year-old crane operator critically injured when crane collapses in Hod Hasharon
A 35-year-old tractor driver was killed and a 55-year-old crane operator was critically injured on Friday when a crane collapsed at a construction site at the Neve Ne'eman junction in Hod Hasharon.
Emergency services evacuated the injured to Rabin Medical Center in Petah Tikva, where the tractor driver died of his injuries. Meanwhile, a smaller crane collapsed and hit the ground nearby. No one was injured.
The adjacent road was closed briefly following the incident. Large police forces from the Kfar Saba police station were called to the scene, and have begun probing the circumstances of the accident.
Kfar Saba Police deputy commander Superintendent Roee Shefer told Ynet that police evacuated the two buildings that were hit to allow an engineer to evaluate the damage and determine whether the buildings may be repopulated.
Crane hit nearby house (Photo: Ido Erez)
Paramedic Maoz Wegshel said, "The woman suffered a serious head injury. The man suffered a multi-system injury. They were both unconscious, we started CPR immediately and evacuated them to the hospital."
Yanon, an eyewitness who works near the scene of the accident told Ynet, "We heard a loud 'boom', and we went outside to see what happened and we saw what happened and we saw that a crane almost 60 meters tall fell at the entrance to Neve Ne'eman. The crane hit shops and luckily did not hit the houses in the nearby neighborhood.
"At first there were a los of panic at the site," he added, "A crane collapsing isn't something you see every day. Emergency services arrived at the scene quickly and took over and treated the injured."
Police said that since the accident was work related, Industry, Trade and Labor investigators were called to the scene. It was unclear what caused the accident, but an initial probe showed that the crane collapsed from its base.
