A collapsible personnel basket apparatus quickly and easily deploys on the tip of a crane boom and stores in a space-efficient manner when not in use. The basket apparatus has a collapsible spine made up of a plurality of spine segments, a support platform pivotally coupled to a bottom spine segment, a connection member pivotally coupled to a top spine segment and including a coupling portion at a proximal end thereof, an adapter configured for attachment to a crane tip at a distal end of a crane boom, and a foldable rail assembly removably mountable on the spine and/or the support platform. The adapter mates with the coupling portion of the connection member to removably mount the connection member on the crane tip. A related deployment method, spine segment locking mechanism, coupling apparatus, and storage apparatus are also disclosed.