Who Was Standing Under the Load? What Two Crane Alerts Say About Exclusion Zones

On 28 October WorkSafe Victoria issued a safety alert after a run of falling object incidents. In one of them, in September, materials fell about 16 storeys and struck a worker, causing serious upper body injuries. A day earlier Workplace Health and Safety Queensland published an incident alert about a January 2026 job where a load of about 4.5 tonnes, lowered by an overhead bridge crane, crushed a worker's foot while they were helping to move it. One load came down from the sky. The other came down a short distance onto someone standing right beside it. Both turn on the same question: where were people while the load was moving?

The Load Is Only Half the Hazard

We put a lot of energy into the load itself. Rated slings, pallet cages, latched hooks. They all matter. But a dropped or swinging load only becomes an injury when a person is in its path. The exclusion zone is the control that keeps those two things apart. It is also the control that erodes fastest, because on a busy day it feels like it is slowing the job down.

The detail I keep coming back to in the Queensland alert is that the worker was helping to move the load. Guiding a load by hand feels useful and normal. It is also exactly how a person ends up in the crush zone between a load and whatever it is about to meet.

Ask yourself about the lifts on your site:

• Is your exclusion zone based on a written risk assessment or on habit?
• Does it cover where the load could fall or swing, not just where it is meant to land?
• Are tag lines on hand so nobody needs a hand on a suspended load?
• On a multi-storey job, does the zone reach the footpath and road below?

What the Two Alerts Actually Recommend

WorkSafe Victoria lists careful crane siting with exclusion zones, cages and stillages rated for the load, rigging and slinging by a suitably qualified person, restraint of loose materials and stopping lifts when wind or visibility go beyond safe limits. It also points out that falling objects put the public at risk. Section 23 of the OHS Act protects people who are not your workers.

The Queensland alert names the hazards that are typical of bridge cranes. Worn components. Noise that affects communication. Unfamiliar pendant directions. Swinging loads. Crushing between the load and an obstacle. Its controls are exclusion zones based on a written risk assessment, tag lines, latched hooks, reliable signalling and pre-shift crane checks.

Two items on that list are not about hardware at all. Noise that drowns out a signal and a pendant whose buttons do not match the direction the operator expects are human factors. A pre-start checklist will not catch either of them unless someone has thought to ask.

Licences Are a Control Too

Both regulators link these incidents back to licensing. In Victoria crane operation and dogging need high risk work licences and a SWMS is required. In Queensland a CB class licence is needed for cabin or multi-function remote bridge and gantry cranes. Anyone who uses judgement to choose how a load is slung needs a dogging licence.

• Who slung the last load on your site? Did they choose the sling and the hitch?
• If so, have you seen their dogging licence or just assumed someone else checked?
• Does your workshop crane have a remote pendant that pushes it into a licensed class?

A Third Reminder From the Farm

On 25 October a 74-year-old worker died on a farm at Waggarandall, near Shepparton. He was reportedly loading a skid steer onto a flatbed trailer when the loading ramp fell and trapped him. It is Victoria's 42nd confirmed workplace fatality this year. WorkSafe has not released more detail and I will not guess at the cause. It is not a crane incident. It does sit on the same question though. When something heavy is moving, where is everyone standing and what stops it landing on them?

Next time a load goes up on your site, could you point to the line on the ground that says where people must not be and name the person whose job it is to hold that line?