Don't forget there are at least three dimensions

This is another story about the summer I worked with my father on a construction job. The first story is here and gives a little background. I've included another picture of a truck crane so you can keep that in mind while you read this story. It's not the same type we worked on but it's similar.

The contractors on this job had chosen to use a truck crane because they only needed one crane but needed it to move quickly from place to place on the job. As the Oiler on this piece of equipment (my father was the Operator - the skilled position), one of my duties was to drive the truck. A truck crane isn't as inherently stable as a crane on tracks or crawlers (like a tank - see the picture at the left) but it can be made more stable by using outriggers (see the bottom picture on the right - this is a hydraulic crane but you can see the outriggers more clearly).

Dad helped me slide the outriggers back in the truck chassis. Then he had to go off to talk to the boss. He pointed out where we were going but I didn't pay much attention to the route he showed me. I just looked at the destination (you could see it from where we were) and told him I start over that way and would meet him there.

We hadn't slid the outriggers all the way in nor removed the pads (the wide square the legs rested on) because we were only going a short distance. I'd just have to watch them a little more closely as I drove. I was very careful to check all around me for obstructions or other vehicles or people walking. There are plenty of mirrors on a crane for checking those things (sometimes - that's another story). I was going slowly so I could continue to check around me and was looking in the rear view mirror when I saw my father running toward me. He was waving his arms and running faster than I'd ever seen him run. Lucky for me I took it seriously and stopped to wait for him. As he ran up to me, a little short of breath, all he could do was point up and a head of me. There were power lines running across the work site that I'd missed. Dad had given me a route around the power lines bit I was going the most direct route. I'd come within 20 or so yards of running into them with the crane boom. We'd left it up because we weren't going that far and there was a way around them. I'm not sure what would have happened if I'd run into them. At the very least, the site would have lost power for the day. At the worst, I'd have endangered the lives of the workers around me and perhaps myself (although being on big rubber tires may have saved me).

It must be like being a pilot or the captain of a submarine. You have to stop thinking in two dimensions and start considering the third dimension. That's another lesson I've not forgotten.