# Death Of Peter Donzelli



## chris_girard

Do any of you guys know the full story of how Dr. Peter Donzelli was killed while doing a removal a few years back, just before the release of the ArborMaster Rigging series that he worked on?

I have read that the tree he was removing failed underneath him but I do not know the full story.


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## Eagle1

I am afraid I have some very sad news to convey. Peter Donzelli was killed yesterday (Tuesday, 29 th August 2000) in a tree accident. He had been working for a local tree company and was topping out a tall tree when it apparently split. News reports say he fell 80 feet and the tree section came down on top of him. Paramedics worked for an hour in attempt to save him but the injuries were too severe. 

Nobody was ever more safety-conscious than Pete, so this comes as a great shock.


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## Eagle1

That was an article I found on him. What kind of tree do you all think?


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## Trinity Honoria

Eagle1 said:


> That was an article I found on him. What kind of tree do you all think?



Tom Dunlap posted several things about Dr Donzelli, and mentioned the investigation, so I am certain he remembers the situation the accident occured; and contact Engineer Dude-- he told me he knew all about Dr Donzelli and they attended the same school... he probably has more info


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## Kneejerk Bombas

As I recall, he was working on a lightening struck conifer, with a bad spot on the main spar. He made the decision to climb past it to remove the top. At some point the tree failed below him.


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## chris_girard

I guess you never can be sure if a tree is safe to climb . You can do all the analysis you want , but the bottom line is that tree work is a dangerous job, and you take your life in your hands, and you never know what can happen.


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## darkstar

ive had 2 close calls one i ripped my calf muscle into bits with a chain saw ... major error ...the other droped a top onto a set up below my feet and even though it got a real cushy landing and slow stop ...[ it tore the top including me out ] luckily i had a preplaced safety line out about 15 feet to the side in a very small pine .... i ended up suspended sideway s the pine bending my ways very far and my tree the top and the broken bits all hung in between ...it was chocking me out so i barely got the saw running and cut err loose .... i really dont like climbing and drop cutting big wood on semmingly sound tree anymore ... dark ps such a bummer aboout peter but it could happen to any of us


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## CoreyTMorine

The most inconsistent and dangerous part of our work is the trees themselves. I find it remarkable that we spend so much time talking about ropes and rigging (myself included) when its the trees that get most of us.

is that true? do more accidents stem from the uncertainties of the wood or from failed rigging or perhaps from improperly executed moves?

i, like darkstar have had an apparently sound spar break off when loaded, also like DS while i was tying in something told me not to tie off on that same spar i used for the rigging, i took the extra few minutes and tied in to a tree next to me.
what was that little voice that saved my life, that peter donzelli didn't hear i guess?


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## treeman82

I know what happened to a certain extent.

Peter was working his way through school climbing trees. One job he encountered while working for a particular company was the removal of a lightning struck pine tree in a back yard. The company had a bucket, but couldn't get access with it because it would have meant cutting down some trees to get into the back yard. Anywho, he was the climber, and the foreman was basically the guy who could drive the chip truck and ground, but had no climbing experience. Peter made his way up the tree cutting off branches as he went up. When he got to the top, he asked the foreman what he wanted to do with it. Bomb it or rope it out. The foreman said to rope it out. They said that Peter was up there for several minutes before he ever started the saw up. The foreman on the ground, he had taken the lowering device and secured it to a tree adjacent to the pine. When Peter took the top and the top hit the rope, the angle of the rope caused the top part of the pine to break, taking Peter down with it. They said that he had actually taken off his belly line when that happened to try to fall somewhere other than where the tree was going. Unfortunately it didn't work out that way. This pine tree was taller than every other tree in the area, and that is why he wasn't tied in to another tree when he did take that top. After he died, the company or a different company came with a bucket truck, cut down the trees to get into the back yard, and finished the tree.


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## Trinity Honoria

treeman82 said:


> I know what happened to a certain extent.
> 
> Peter was working his way through school climbing trees.



i'm confused-- Dr Donzelli was already through school, a gentleman with a doctorate in engineering... from what i can find, he wasn't a kid working his way through school... here's one set of comments after his death:
http://www.arborist.de/peter_donzellis_work.htm


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## treeman82

Yeah, he had a doctorate in engineering, and then was going on for a doctorate in biological engineering or something like that. Biology or Botany, one of the two.


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## darkstar

that sux ... stupid azz ground man roping the lowering device to another tree ... that always makes more side pull and is likely to break out the top ....ihave to constantly preach to hy help to attach the lowering device to the tree we are working in ... 
brings up another thing ..sometimes a safety rope set to the side even lower down can help ..and the climber can untie completly from the tree or use a break away setup ... i use and old steel eyebolt actually an eyehook .. theory is it will ripe out under load ...never tested it .. what a loss ...


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## stehansen

I had a 90' plus tall Cedar tree at my house that was hit by lightening. It blew up the top 30' and split the next 30'. When we took it down that split 30' was extremely hard to work with. We tried to chunk it out and gave up as it was too unstable to work with. We ended up going down to sound wood and falling a 25' section. We put all sorts of wood under the peice coming down but it just plowed through it and broke my curb and put a 1 foot deep divit in my lawn. My point being that even though Mr. Donzelli was obviously a brillant man with a huge thrist for knowledge, in this business we work with variables that we can only estimate.


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## CoreyTMorine

to true stehansen. stupid groundman? it sounded like peter asked if they wanted to lower that top, he then proceded to shock load an already compromised spar. i have lots of thoughts regaurding this accident, i think the most useful is that somedays it pays to stay home. seriously, this work is deadly. if i'm not feeling well or get up on the wrong side of the bed i shift right down into super conservative, low gear. i'd much rather prune rhodedendrones all day, or fill in some divets on the lawn than estimate potentially fatal situations when my estimating sences are not 100%, well i average 99%


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## Eagle1

That is so true. I feel the same way as you. Right on!!


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## Tom Dunlap

Pete was NOT working his way through school. He did treework because he enjoyed the work. 

There was NOT a lowering device. the top was butt hitched with trunk wraps for friction. 

When the top was tipped over the shock load broke the tree many feet below Pete and he fell over 50 feet with two tree sections. He was attached to the spar when he hit the ground. 

Pete died five years ago. I miss him dearly every day


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## CoreyTMorine

how long had he been climbing trees before the accident?

where did he learn how to do tree work?

is there any evidence that he was suicidal?

Was the imperfection that caused the tree to snap visable? did peter know about it?

I only ask because this accident like the "safety blue blowout 200# top" doesn't make sence to me. Trees and ropes follow the same rules as everything else in the physical world. if we know and understand those rules (and peter donzelli apparently did) then we should come home safe and sound every night.


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## TheTreeSpyder

A leading arborist told me he was in the area for that job, but not right there at the time and so was called to the scene; they said it was too many wraps(3?); and rope held too tight/ no slip - relief by inexperienced ground control. 

Doc Shigo had him gather all the tree pieces from dump and did forensic examination of the tree to verify the rot etc.


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## alanarbor

I find myself musing a bit about this scenario from time to time. The thing I keep wondering about is.....Why trunk wraps? I don't recall, was a block in use?

I have found that trunk wraps offer such inconsistant friction, that even an experienced ground crew has trouble with prescision lowering under those conditions.

It just seems like the equipment was lacking.........inexperience of the ground crew could have been a factor, I don't know what else, but I'll bet there was a small voice in the back of his head that said "You don't have what you need to do this job today" 

The problem is we all ignore that voice way to much, and rationalize that we can make do with what we have, just man up, and get 'er done. Most of the time, we get away with it.

I only had the pleasure of learning from him once, and really regret that I won't have that oppourtunity again.


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## clearance

Tragic accident, nothing we can do about it but learn from it. To lay blame on the groundsman is wrong, and also unfair to the groundsman who must think about this often. The climber runs the show, makes the decisions. I would let it lie but I want to get something across, if you are risking your life on your groundsmans ability to let a rope "run", you are an idiot. The fact that a highly educated man who actually wrote the book on advanced rigging died using his own techniques should be a continual wakeup story for every one here. Hammer it down, cut down trees to drive in a boom truck, wreck the lawn, whatever, be safe.


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## treeseer

clearance said:


> cut down trees to drive in a boom truck, wreck the lawn, whatever, be safe.



It'll always be a judgment call. Those who knew Peter best are continually working to make the work safer, but they are not ignoring other values. If we were thinking safety first and nothing second, we'd have no room for tree care, just logging.


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## treeman82

That was the version told to me by Ken Palmer, and he had after pics to show.


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## clearance

treeseer said:


> It'll always be a judgment call. Those who knew Peter best are continually working to make the work safer, but they are not ignoring other values. If we were thinking safety first and nothing second, we'd have no room for tree care, just logging.


The tree in this tragedy was a removal, safety always comes first, your way of thinking seems to suggest that safety can be compromised by the value of a tree. A "judgement call" what do you mean by that, I sure hope it isn't "maybe the tree will fail, but the tree is so nice, I guess I'll risk it", is that what you do? Logging is far more hazardous than arboriculture as far as fatalities go, are you advocating evening things up?


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## TheTreeSpyder

One of the promises of the Equal & Opposite Reaction's duality, is that the relief of force; can be as powerful as the application of force. The way i h'eared it; ground control thought he knew better/ was inexperienced and held the rope tight; not giving relief of force as told. Guys have done it to me; can't control everything from the air. But, this isn't about beating anyone up.

i like tying in below fault if i go above it, then sling and krab choked very body length or so and 1 leg of line placed thru it.

It is all just a sad reminder, that if the smartest amongst us can be taken anytime; anyone can fall prey to such an event; never drop your guard.


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## xtremetrees

CoreyTMorine it was a lightening struck pine that killed pete, from the ole days when ISA could manage a forum. I never did meet him.


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## CoreyTMorine

xtremetrees said:


> CoreyTMorine it was a lightening struck pine that killed pete, from the ole days when ISA could manage a forum. I never did meet him.



I didn't think the ISA was ever to awful good at managing their forum, they sure as hell couldn’t manage most of the people there, LOL 

Re lightening struck trees; I've seen sap pockets split a tree for 40 feet. One incident i wasn't there for, but heard about back at the shop that night; Apparently Matt cut a big ol chunk off of a LS Fir. It must have been the last chunk holding the split part of the tree together. When it was cut, half of the tree started to slide down, I guess Matt looked like a cartoon cat running in mid air trying to get his hooks into something that wasn't moving.

Eastern white pine doesn't usually build internal sap pockets, not like Doug fir anyway. In the vast majority of Pinus strobus I have seen, the lightning damage runs in a spiral down the outside of the tree.


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## treemandan

Del_Corbin said:


> Tom,
> 
> Thanks for clarifying. I only met Pete six or seven times and he was a great fellow.
> 
> Pete's ability to grasp physics concepts thrown at him by conference attendees was very impressive. Pete had a wonderful mind and his passing was a great loss to the arboricultural community.
> 
> Dan



Apparently he didn't bring this ability that day, from what Dunlap and reports said this sounds, well, it sounds freaking rediculous. Picturing it in my head? Jeez, I hate to say sublime. Sounds like he rolled the dice and lost.


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## treemandan

clearance said:


> Tragic accident, nothing we can do about it but learn from it. To lay blame on the groundsman is wrong, and also unfair to the groundsman who must think about this often. The climber runs the show, makes the decisions. I would let it lie but I want to get something across, if you are risking your life on your groundsmans ability to let a rope "run", you are an idiot. The fact that a highly educated man who actually wrote the book on advanced rigging died using his own techniques should be a continual wakeup story for every one here. Hammer it down, cut down trees to drive in a boom truck, wreck the lawn, whatever, be safe.



To declare the climber runs the show and mean it is the worst strategey there is. Think about what is being said here. How far would have Hillary gotten without a good sherpa?


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## treemandan

Del_Corbin said:


> To the memory of Dr. Peter Donzelli!


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## Iustinian

treemandan said:


> To declare the climber runs the show and mean it is the worst strategey there is. Think about what is being said here. How far would have Hillary gotten without a good sherpa?



I agree -- a groundman can shockload the rigging point if he doesnt allow the peice to run; Peter was the one who taught us that "a 630 lb log can generate over 7k lbs of force AT THE RIGGING POINT before it hits the ground". 

every climber knows that an inexperienced groundman, or a good groundman off his game that day can shake us off that spar; we trust our groundguys to a great extent many days, especially if we've worked with them for years. 

Peter Donzelli IMO was one of the greatest teachers we had -- The Art and Science. As Alex Shigo is considered the Father of Modern Arboriculture, I consider Dr. Peter Donzelli to be the Father of Rigging in Arboriculture. I learned alot from him, and continue to do so, even after he's been gone. "How you know someone was a very special guy is when you continue to learn from them in life after they have left." --_porsche965_


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## chris_girard

This is an old thread that I’m not really surprised to see come back.

Pete’s death is really a misfortune in that it never should have happened. In his life and in his death, we continue to learn from him.

May he rest in peace.


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## murphy4trees

I would very much like to know what kind of rigging line was being used.. My guess is that it was low stretch, and had he used a lighter line with more stretch, he'd still be with us..


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## Zale

murphy4trees said:


> I would very much like to know what kind of rigging line was being used.. My guess is that it was low stretch, and had he used a lighter line with more stretch, he'd still be with us..



How could you say that? You sanctimonious blow-hard.


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