Lucky escape as excavator rolls

By TANIA MARTIN
A 15TONNE excavator tumbled into a Selby family’s back yard last week narrowly missing a sevenyearold girl who was in the kitchen.
The excavator stopped one metre from the house and only three metres from where Iesha Meaney, seven, sat eating her breakfast.
Aaron and Monica Meaney were getting ready for work just after 7.45am on Monday, 5 September, when they heard a horrific noise coming from their back yard.
The Meaneys assumed there had been a road accident just outside their house on the BelgraveGembrook Road.
Mr Meaney said he didn’t stop to look at what was happening and just grabbed his daughter who was eating her breakfast at the kitchen table and moved to the other side of the house. He said it was not until the noise had subsided did he have a look at what was going on.
Mr Meaney was shocked to see that an excavator and its driver were in his backyard only a metre from the back door.
Mrs Meaney said Aaron also had to rescue the family dog, a golden retriever named Rolly, from the backyard as he was trapped between the excavator and the back door.
Belgrave police officer Senior Constable Jarrod Rollason said an excavator operator unloading his machine from a semitrailer truck outside a house in Selby slipped on the edge and rolled down an embankment and into a resident’s backyard.
Sen Const Rollason said the excavator driver was doing some work in Nation Road, but decided to unload the machine from the truck on the BelgraveGembrook Road as Nation Road was too narrow.
However, Mrs Meaney said the truck could have been driven further down Nation Road to a flat area to unload the excavator.
Sen Const Rollason said the excavator operator was unhurt. It took until 2pm to remove the excavator from the back yard.
WorkSafe media adviser Michael Birt said the excavator operator did a good job to stop the machine from rolling into the house and causing further damage.
However, Mr Birt said WorkSafe warned people to use extreme care when moving anything off tiltup trailers or low loaders because there was not a lot of room for error.
The Meaneys said they were angry over the state their backyard had been left in, with tree branches and a torn fence strewed across the yard.
Mrs Meaney said the family no longer had any privacy because there was no longer a fence and people could see straight into the house.
She said she was still waiting for the Shire of Yarra Ranges arborist to come out and assess the damaged trees.
However, the shire’s manager of community relations James Martin said the tree was on VicRoads land and had been assessed by VicRoads as being safe.
Mr Martin said the council’s arborist would contact the Meaneys again to check if there were any other trees that were of concern.
The Meaneys said they were trying to determine who was responsible for the cost of the damage caused.