A heroic crane operator who lifted a colleague to safety from a tower blaze in Reading said his “adrenaline was gone out the roof” during the rescue.
Glen Edwards was lauded after saving the man’s life when a fire broke out last week at an 18-storey office tower being built by Sir Robert McAlpine as part of the town’s £750m Station Hill redevelopment.
In a TV interview on Good Morning Britain, 65-year-old Edwards, from Egham, Surrey, said he was concreting at the site when the alert was raised by one of the banksmen on the ground and he heard the fire alarm go off.
From his position 20 metres up, he realised someone was trapped on the eighth storey of the tower.
“As I slewed round, I could see the guy out my left window, he was waving his coat,” he said.
The man had about 2 square metres to stand on while the flames encircled the building and the wind swirled round.
After the two banksmen on the ground attached the rescue cradle to the crane, Edwards hoisted up.
“I decided I was going to come down on him instead of slewing round into him because there’s a knack to catching the swing,” he said.
“As I was coming down, the cradle was swinging backwards and forwards, catching the wind, and he just managed to grab hold of it.”
Asked what was going through his mind, Edwards said: “My adrenaline was gone out the roof – obviously, I tried to stay calm.
“On the top of the jib there’s a camera and you can zoom in and out, but I couldn’t see him because of the smoke and the flames.
“Every now and again, I got a glimpse of him and the smoke came back.
“I tried to land the cage between him and the fire, which I did eventually.”
Paying tribute to the efforts of the banksmen and the firefighters from Royal Berkshire Fire and Rescue Service who had tackled the fire, Edwards said he was badly shaken after landing the man on the ground.
“I had a job to stand up, put it that way,” he said. “I was really shaking. I needed a quiet minute to get myself together.”
He said he had not met the man since the rescue, but McAlpine was working to bring everyone involved together.
In a statement following the incident, the firm said everyone had been evacuated to a place of safety and thanked those on the site for their quick thinking.
McAlpine was appointed two years ago as lead contractor for the second phase of the Station Hill scheme, which includes a glazed tower providing 26,000 square metres of office space, a new public square and a link bridge providing access from the train station to Reading town centre.
Tagged with: crane health and safety hero Reading rescue
