The boom from a crane that was working on the new Tappan Zee Bridge collapsed and fell over on the existing bridge, blocking all lanes.
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He declined to identify the crane operator.
A small boat crew from Coast Guard Station New York is enforcing a safety zone around the site of the incident and will remain in place for as long as necessary.
The work is the first of two phases to fix the damage caused by the crane collapse.
Video from a news helicopter showed at least one person being removed from a vehicle and loaded into an ambulance.
Jeff Loughlin, the business manager for the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 137 in Briarcliff Manor, N.Y., said the operator could do nothing to stop the boom as it descended rapidly under its own weight.
Rockland County had a helicopter and marine unit at the scene, county Executive Ed Day said.
A representative of the crane operator’s union said the “black box” of the crane will be something from which the investigation can find out what went wrong, FIOS1 News said.
The southernmost lane, however, suffered a “punch through” hole in the bridge’s road deck and damage to the exterior guard rail.
“He was a little rattled”, said Loughlin, himself a veteran crane operator with more than 30 years of experience.
The new bridge, which is scheduled to be completed in 2018, is one of the largest infrastructure projects underway in the United States. The other part sprawled across the busy lanes of the old bridge, forcing cars to swerve out of the way. In one, a almost 200-foot-tall tower crane used in skyscraper construction fell near the United Nations headquarters on Manhattan’s East Side, pulverizing buildings below and killing six construction workers and a tourist.
“Miraculously, there were no serious injuries”, said New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. It was a new crane performing a routine task.
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The crawler crane, manufactured by the Manitowoc company, of Wisconsin, was less than a year old, according to Damien Lavera, a spokesman for Tappan Zee Constructors, the consortium of contractors building a $3.9 billion replacement for the Tappan Zee. It is being built alongside the original Tappan Zee, which dates to 1955.
