# "Near Death Experience Anyone?"



## jblimbwalker (Mar 4, 2003)

Just curious: What's the closest you guys have ever came to being seriously hurt/killed?
I was put on a climbing crew(groundman) when I first started doing trees. I was working with a climber who was topping out a large pine. He climbed to the top, set his pull line and safety line. He came down and cut his notch (I'm thinking,"OK, he's gonna pull his climbing line down in a sec.") Well, he didn't. He started with his back cut and let me tell you, I have never screamed so loud in my life. He stopped, looked down, and screamed back, "What's the problem!?" Before I could answer he had noticed what he was about to do. Luckily everything turned out alright. That was almost 11 yrs. ago and to this day that guy tells everybody that I was the best groundman he ever had. I guess so, I saved his life.

"Work Smarter AND Harder"


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## Jumper (Mar 4, 2003)

*Too Close for Comfort*

Does riding a bicycle to work with an tree guy (I won't call him an arborist) count? Last summer I was pedalling along Innis Road, bent over on my ten speed, and a car passed by so close his right hand side mirror slapped me in the butt but good. I managed to stop the bike without falling off though I ended up in the ditch.The driver did stop and was having fits over hitting me. All I had was a bruise on my rear, but if he had been a couple of inches more to the right I would have been toast. Needless to say I switched my route to one that mainly was on side streets. Just goes to prove work may have the potential to be dangerous, 
but so can the daily trip to and from your home. 

I did get hit in the head by a large branch last year as well which fell out of the tree while I was tugging on another with the pole pruner. Knocked me flying but I did have on a hard hat which absorbed much of the shock.

I guess when your time is up it is time to depart this earth. A casual friend died last week after his snowmobile hit a tree. All after over 3000 skydives with an international competition level canopy relative work team, and ten years working for Otis as an elevator mechanic, which in itself is a hazardous job..


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## Treeman14 (Mar 4, 2003)

I had a crane operator swing me into power lines one time many years ago. Burned the back of my thighs and calfs, and welded the chain to the bar on my climbing saw. Took a couple of years to get over my fear of cranes after that. Now if the job requires it, I love using the crane.

I also got stuck by a REALLY big thorn one time.


Almost stepped on a Diamondback a few years ago.


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## Toddppm (Mar 4, 2003)

I done a few cut and prays when I was first learning. Had a big top go the wrong way that could have got me bad if I couldn't have gotten to the other side of the tree in time.
Tree work wise has been a relatively safe part of my life compared to younger bulletproof days of drunken escapades and owning a street motorcycle with little respect.


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## Menchhofer (Mar 4, 2003)

Although this was not too frightening, it did scare me at the time..


Using an old bucket truck pruning tree...did not chock wheel.... good grade on the driveway....did not particularly pay attention when outriggers were deployed...1 employee chipping at the time...fully extended.

Felt truck begin to move and did not like it when it continued to travel down the drive, over the curb and INTO the street.

I yelled for help, no one heard me (chipper too loud). Truck stopped in middle of road and as I composed myself, travelled down set up again WITH chocks.


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## jblimbwalker (Mar 4, 2003)

*near death*

Wow! Now I am really interested in seeing if anyone can beat that one.


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## TREETX (Mar 4, 2003)

This one time at band camp.....


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## Dan F (Mar 5, 2003)

Though it didn't happen to me, and not in a tree, it did happen to my father and did involve a tree... (follow that?)

My father works for the grounds department at a university. About 6-7 years ago, he was digging some trees that were almost too big for their 86" Big John Tree spade... He got two of the spades down (opposite spades), the other two he couldn't get down all the way, but far enough he could pull out the ball and lower the other two spades...

Picks up the ball, looks in the hole expecting to see a good sized rock and sees a green pipe. Thinks it's the water line, tells his supervisor who calls the plumbing department. They say, nope, no water line in the nursery, call the gas company.... Turns out it was the 12" high pressure main that fed all of the university and the city!

Repair crew was amazed that he didn't puncture it and that he was still alive!


Dan


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## John Paul Sanborn (Mar 5, 2003)

So he calls the locator service from now on?


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## Dan F (Mar 5, 2003)

I forgot to mention about that....

Where he was digging was in the nursery, where they have been digging for years. AFAIK, the gas main is the only utility that runs through there. Utilities are ALWAYS located when on campus (still doesn't mean utilities aren't found the hard way!)

Dad said afterwards that if you looked to either side of the nursery property line, there were the yellow riser pipes sticking up, and right in between the two was that gas main. While I can't speak specifically for my father, I imagine that he subconsciously *assumed* that since he had been digging in the nursery for so long that he was safe to do so in that location. I'm not sure, but I think the rest of the trees in that row were either cut down, left, or dug with a much shallower root ball. 

As an aside, the Big John digs to a depth of 56". I believe the top of the gas main was somwhere between 48-50". 


Now this story gets told every fall to the landscape contracting class when they visit the campus nursery. 
Live and learn.


Dan


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## Menchhofer (Mar 5, 2003)

Do not forget Holey Moley..always call before you dig.


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## monkeypuzzle (Mar 7, 2003)

Took a nasty bite from a large Crotalus adamanteus back in 97'. Hey Treeman14, what was the outcome with that meeting?


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## Treeman14 (Mar 7, 2003)

No Contest.

Treeman - 1
Diamondback - 0

:angel:


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## Tim Gardner (Mar 7, 2003)

I got married. Still not sure if i survived or not though.  

Almost drowned while swimming in the river. Things get peaceful and calm right before blacking out. Still have a fear of water as a result.


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## Reed (Mar 7, 2003)

Remember waking up freezing cold and hurting like a truck ran over my chest - had the paddles jolt my heart back when it quit after fighting an infection during my bone marrow transplant. I was in a laminar air-flow room locked alone until I could get some immunity back after six exposures to total body radiation.

The hospital air conditioning system quit one night so a nurse brought to my door some wet towels to keep cool under. They weren't sterilized and I succumbed to an infection immediately. This was while my new marrow was being infused thru tubes thru the wall so I was already 3/4s dead. I remember serious chills, flopping around on my cot and not being able to control it and a while later the calming warmth overtaking me - that part I remember was wonderful, that's when the heart had quit beating and I remember the alarm going off. I knew my heart quit but didn't care, things were happening so fast and painful then suddenly everything seemed so calm and nice. It was a great experience, one I'll never forget. Details withheld, when the first jolt hit me I felt a 'return' of sorts, a return of pain. I remember opening my eyes and seeing a few doctors over me, felt those painful shakes again, and drifted-off by choice I think, again. One more time of quick pain, chills, loud noise and I came back, but I remember being pissed off about it. 

They jumped me twice but didn't rollme down to cardiac ICU, I had to remain in the sealed room although those docs did indeed bring me a plateload of more infection, but drugs helped those over time. There were 11 other BMT patients in that ward and seven of them died while I was there - heart failures. Turns out years later, when the feds reviewed my records that the hospital had overdosed my total body irradiation time six - technical mistake. So my heart was hit by both the germs and deadly fatal doses of radiation. Oh well, here I am. I don't recommend transplants but times have changed enormously. Radiation sucks but my overdoses left me with some rather strange differences from my life before all this. 

Four years ago was the 70 mph head-on without a seatbelt. Ditto all over again, but no benefit of the experience of enlightenment - just pain like a mother. Feline attributes maintain there are four down, then five left to go? 

Death isn't as bad an experience as we're conditioned to believe, but I feel if I didn't have two young children home waiting for me to get over that hospital visit, I would not have elected to come home, probably would not have taken any role in helping keep the heart beating after they so disturbingly and violently kick-started it again. I appreciate what they did, I appreciate what I did, and whoever that person was that appeared before me and took my hand to lead me down that path of life's review during that episode I wish to thank too.


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## John Paul Sanborn (Mar 8, 2003)

I was in Isreal, with "Landing Force 6th Fleet" (LF6F MEU-26) Disentary, pneumonia, plurisy. No proper meds in the fleet. They contacted the USAF to MedEvac me, they declined I was so bad. So deleriouse I told a naval Commander I would punch him if the needle hurt for the vien blood draw. Lost 60#. They shipped me to an Isreali teaching hospital on the Sabbath, that sucked, but saved my hide. Someone stole 40 bucks from my wallet somewhere along thr way...


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## murphy4trees (Mar 17, 2003)

I fell to sleep one night driving to Virginia Beech, Va. in an 83 Chevy conversion van... When I woke up it was morning (that's the truth) and I was doing 55 on grass on the side of a very steep hill traveling perfectly parrallel to the highway. I was going to attend a 5 day retreat where 4 of the 9 participants were HIV positive.... 
That little stunt cured ne of any fears about HIV.


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## TimberMcPherson (Mar 23, 2003)

Close calls? I was doing my first crane job, in a tall pine in conditions (ie wind and a inexperienced crane operator) that were not ideal. Saw got jammed in a cut when crane had to much pressure on and ripped before the cut was near finished. I was lanyarded to the saw (066) and ended up getting stretched out 20m off the ground between the log the crane was swinging away and the tree I was still tied in to. Crane guy couldnt see me and didnt hear the groundies screaming at him. Saw let go and we came screaming back into the tree, not hurt really but a bit shaken.

Working with an ex logger who thought dogs on a saw chain were made to be removed, I was cutting down some brush when it kicked back and stoped about 2 inches from my nose. 

I was racing F3 some time back, had a brake failure at the end of the main straight, came off my bike doing about 120mph. I somehow got ahead of the bike and blew a hole in the tirewall with my body, bike followed through the same hole but ended up hitting the solid wall behind less than a foot from my head. 

Im not going to go into teaching myslef to paraglide.


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## treeman82 (Mar 23, 2003)

A couple years ago I was helping a friend out at his house. We had felled a locust tree which got tangled up in some other trees once it was on the ground. I was cutting it up into logs when my saw got stuck pretty bad. My friend went and took his little shindiawa saw and went to cut me out. Sure enough the log broke, hitting him square in the chest. Knocked him back several feet onto his back. somehow it took his helmet off, and threw his saw off to the side several feet. He was lucky that he was alright, he was hurting for a while, but he was alright. :angel:


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## treeguy347 (Mar 23, 2003)

Dan, don't know if calling a locator service would have done any good. Had a sewer line marked 11 feet from where it actually was (the worst error Iv'e seen) and the most interesting one was digging postholes for a fence. Found a particularly hard "root" so I slammed the diggers into it and the "root" made a nasty hissing noise and was spraying dirt out of the hole. Turns out I cut through a 3" gas line. Michcon came out and fixed it and wanted to bill me for the repair. I got some supervisor to come out and showed him the yellow dashed line and flags three and a half feet from my hole. After they finally figured out miss dig screwed up, I didn't have to apy a thing.


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## mikecross23 (Mar 25, 2003)

Drunk driving wake up call, bounced off curb, could have been worse. Me and booze don't mix anymore. About 3 yrs ago I was removing a small 70' pine. My health insurance had just been cancled and I was super nervous for some reason and my brain was scattered. My weight was on my left foot standing at the base of a small branch and I completely unclipped my lanyard to get over a branch. While I was reaching around for the lanyard I heard a snap and immediately started to fall w/ no tie in and about 60' up. I hugged the tree and somehow got my right gaff to sink and clipped back in. I stood on my gaffs and took a few deep breaths and managed to focus. That was scary but a good wake up call. I do things safer now.

-Mike-


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## TheTreeSpyder (Mar 25, 2003)

i had the brakes lock up on a car coming off a curve, yelled at a guy to get out of my way 10am. one Sun. Morn.

Woke up 4 days later in a hospital, one of them calenders ya rip the day off for each day hanging on the wall, wondering where the daze went. Everything bleeping and blipping, tubes every where imaginable, unable to move anything but my eyes to scan the room in circles.

i could hear my dad asking the doctor if i was going to make it over by the door, clear as day; the priest was on the way. i remember fighting to stay awake, afraid as hell what would happen if i didn't; but soon faded. i remember resurfacing and fighting another couple rounds. i went from being hyper re-active (who'd guess?) to taking 3 sips of soup being an exhausting experience, as if i had swam a channel and barely washed up on shore somehow.

i had crushed my heart between my chest and spine busting my pericardium, that holds poisionous junk out from your heart.

Took some time to get over that...........

Find the write harmony, we be here only awhile!


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## geofore (Mar 26, 2003)

*clinically dead*

Does it count if you flatlined over 20 miniutes? Aneurysm burst right tempoal lobe at work, youngest, worst case, that ever lived through it. Got to be an "experimental medical use only" kind of guy. Had a heart attack in a tree but with the stents they put in I still go just not fast anymore. The wife says, "That's because your, What  50 this week. I'll be climbing when I'm 90


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