My Dad does Demolition crosses the pond

Joint authors of My Dad Does Demolition--John Woodward & Mark Anthony--are delighted that Bill Moore (judge of the World Demolition Awards in Amsterdam in November) liked the book so much that he ordered one for his grandson Jake.

Here is what Bill said when he sent through a picture of his grandson with the book:

"As promised, here's a picture I had taken yesterday after giving your book to my grandson, Jake, at his 8th birthday party.

My son, John, is 36 and is the general superintendent for Alpine Demolition, a suburban Chicago demolition contractor.

Jake may be the 3rd generation "wrecker"?

Thanks again for the great book!"

We've also received picture proof from our friend and explosive demolition expert Fabio Bruno that My Dad Does Demolition has now reached Brazil!


You can still obtain copies via eBay.

At What Price For The Beautiful Game?

New C&D Consultant Brent Gill gives his thoughts on the work being carried out to bring the World Cup to Brazil and beyond.

At What Price For The Beautiful Game?

Brazil 2014, Qatar 2022, ? 2026.

Being a Sheffield lad the home of the world’s oldest football club (Hallam FC). I was alarmed to read about the appalling Accident figures while building the infrastructure and stadiums for the next two World Cups. I’m not going to throw figures and statistics about willy nilly, but there is cause for concern from any decent specimen of mankind.

These people are having to work long hours under enormous pressure even though official sources deny there is any pressure applied. While the reality is quite the reverse. Even more so at the moment in Brazil many deadlines have been missed and the chances of keeping the tournament are getting slimmer. My point is Great Britain is one of the safest countries to work in. I’m not saying by any means we are perfect, but we have a safety culture in the main.

We have all played our parts, from our fore fathers to you. The mistakes that have happened in the past have helped to mould our future and will continue to do so. Transparency and accountability form a good one-two when combined “take control and show the reasoning behind taking control” simple in it?

Back to the unfortunate souls currently engaged on various projects in Brazil, the accidents, the injuries, and the non payment of wages no doubt all helped along with the national protest against the World Cup. These are lessons learnt long ago in Great Britain (sadly it still happens here). What legacy are FIFA and the rest of the World leaving to the home of the” beautifully played game”? Death, widows, maiming and disability.

Now for a couple of shocking facts for the Qatar 2022 World Cup. Up to date 28/01/14, there have been 188 deaths of immigrant Nepalese contractors due to cardiac arrest or cardiac related disease! Why has got to be the question along with how can so many within a wide age group succumb to a related disease. Could it be working long hours in 40 degree heat? Is it their diet? Or lifestyle? The simple answer is NO to all the above. After some surfing of many web sites the answer is! Cardiac arrest or cardiac diseases are not notifiable to the authorities’ simple in it. The current estimate for accidents/injuries for the duration of the construction phase is 4,000! What a legacy to leave behind. While we enjoy our World Cup will they?

We are all in it together to try and make it a safer world.

Thank the lord I work in Great Britain.

Remember there is no such thing as a stupid question, only stupid people who don’t ask questions.

If you’re not sure ASK! Don’t be Stupid.

Construction worker walks away from steel rod piercing skull

A construction worker wearing a hard hat is deemed as taking the necessary precaution to protect their head from injury. But there's only so much a hard hat can do.

Eduardo Leite was wearing his hard hat while on a construction site in Rio de Janeiro, but it wasn't enough to stop a 6-foot long metal pole piercing his skull after falling five floors.


The pole pierced his skull midway back and came out the other side lower down and between his two eyes. Survival was surely not a possibility, but sure enough Eduardo has walked away from the incident. He even arrived at the hospital conscious explaining what had happened.

It took doctors several hours of surgery, which also saw Eduardo's right eye saved and risk of partial paralysis averted. His total recovery, without brain damage, is expected to only take a few weeks. Incredible.

Source: BBC

Worldwide training enquiries for C&D Consultancy's new online awareness training courses

At the end of last week John was speaking at the World Demolition Summit 2011 where he outlined the proposed new C&D online training courses due to be rolled out in early 2012, following requests from overseas customers for user friendly “bite size” training courses for demolition, asbestos and general safety awareness training.

We are delighted to announce that enquiries following the presentation have been flowing into the office from Brazil, Chicago, Denmark, Cyprus and Australia and further talks are now planned with both potential investors and web hosting companies to move the training forward towards a launch in early 2012.

John's presentation from the Summit can be downloaded by clicking on the link below:

Download John's training presentation

If you're interested in receiving training please get in touch.

Fabio simulates Hospital Universitário do Fundão demolition

On December 19th, our friend Fabio Bruno Pinto, is going to demolish the Hospital Universitário do Fundão. Part of the preparation included producing a simultion video which has has been kind enough to share.

If you're a regular reader you will have seen our previous coverage of Fabio's work including the demolition of a four storey building, and the videos of the Presidio Helio Gomes in Rio de Janeiro.

Source: Demolition News

Brazil prepares for 2014 World Cup with Fonte Nova stadium implosion

Brazil is hosting the 2014 World Cup and therefore needs to do a bit of demolition to remove the old, rundown stadiums and make way for new ones.

The latest is the Fonte Nova stadium in Salvador, which was imploded on Sunday. It required 700 kilos of explosives to raise to the ground, and sparked a lot of emotion with locals due to memories of people dying there when stands collapsed in 2007.

You can see some more upclose footage in the video below:



Source: Demolition News

Another Fabio demolition, this time in Santa Cruz

Yesterday we got to see Fabio Bruno Pinto demolish a four storey building in Rio, Brazil. We wanted more and went searching for other Fabio jobs video footage had been captured for.

The video below is a job Fabio's company carried out in December last year. It's two buildings in Santa Cruz, Rio. We get to see a decent snapshot of the preparation work required before the implosion can take place and the main event happens.

In the end it's another impressive demolition job, and one planned using a simulation similar to that used on the Presidio Helio Gomes.

Four-storey build implosion this weekend in Brazil

As reported by Demolition News last month, our friend Fabio Bruno Pinto is carrying out a four-storey 3,700 square metre building implosion tomorrow in Brazil.

The original plan was for the BBC to fly out and film it with our very own John Woodward. Unfortunately the flight times were unworkable for John and that is no longer going to happen. The BBC is still going to be there, though, so we should get some great footage to watch.

Videos of the work will surely appear tomorrow afternoon, but for now check out this simulation of how the building is expected to come down:



Source: Demolition News

Busy week in prospect for John Woodward

This week means a busy seven days for John as Monday sees him at Armac preparing methods for new contracts in Dudley and Glamorgan before he goes to Glasgow on Monday evening for the monthly GHA site meetings on Tuesday for the High Reach demolition contracts at Plean Street for TDS, and at Broomloan Court for Coleman & Co.

Wednesday sees him carrying out CCDO assessments for the NDTG in the Midlands before travelling to Erith on Thursday for the IDE Council of Management meeting.

Immediately following the Council meeting he then collects more air miles by flying to Rio, Brazil to assist the BBC in filming the implosion of Presidium Helio Gomes in Rio on Saturday at noon for the second series of “Wonders of the Solar System” presented by Brian Cox, before flying back overnight on Sunday to the UK.

Hopefully all travel plans will run smoothly and we will keep you informed via our twitter feed as to where he is at any time.