# Wood Chipper Death



## KRP (Sep 2, 2009)

I came across this in my local news. When feeding, have somebody around to remind you of safe feeding or possibly help you in case something happens.


http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/storie...OL-?SITE=WBBMAM&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT


----------



## super3 (Sep 2, 2009)

Heard about this this morning. His buddy said he turned around to get another limb and when he turned back around he was gone.


----------



## scott t (Sep 2, 2009)

Yeah it happened about five min from my house my regards to his family wish them well. Make you remember how fast it can happen in this line of work.


----------



## Barry Stumps (Sep 2, 2009)

Does anyone know if it was an older chuck and duck or the hydro feed?


----------



## scott t (Sep 2, 2009)

it was a self feed w/ reverse bar and i heard from some people that they had the reverse bar bungied i use to stop and shoot the crap with them guys all the time


----------



## super3 (Sep 2, 2009)

scott t said:


> Yeah it happened about five min from my house my regards to his family wish them well. Make you remember how fast it can happen in this line of work.



He was from my hometown.


----------



## scott t (Sep 2, 2009)

oh yeah sorry to hear about it


----------



## Barry Stumps (Sep 2, 2009)

I have a hydro feed with the same reverse bar. Mine broke and only the forward worked because the modulater or something like that went out. I took it to the shop and spent $1300 to get a new one. I was upset of the price but now realize that it was the best money I ever spent. God be with his family.


----------



## scott t (Sep 3, 2009)

Barry Stumps said:


> I have a hydro feed with the same reverse bar. Mine broke and only the forward worked because the modulater or something like that went out. I took it to the shop and spent $1300 to get a new one. I was upset of the price but now realize that it was the best money I ever spent. God be with his family.



there is not amount of money worth a life be safe and good luck


----------



## lego1970 (Sep 5, 2009)

Barry Stumps said:


> Does anyone know if it was an older chuck and duck or the hydro feed?





I read somewhere that only the hydraulic self feed have had fatalities from people being pulled in. Don't know how accurate or old the ariticle I read was but I could believe it because you can pull yourself out of a manual feed/chuck and duck type chipper. There have been times when I've pulled out a limb while being chipped from the older chipper, but there is no way I can do that on a hydraulic self feed without hitting the bumper gaurds. There are many other reasons why Asplundh and Wright still use the older
chuck and duck chippers but I bet accidents like listed above is one of them, especially with all the newbies they hire.


----------



## outofmytree (Sep 6, 2009)

> A coworker who was across the street returned to the wood chipper and could not find Vician



And therein lies the moral of the story. When I say we run two men when chipping I mean two men feeding the apron not one across the street where he is useless in an emergency. 

My Bandit pulls roughly half a metre per second when running at full pressure to the feed rollers. The apron is 1.8 metres long. So wherever your second man is, he or she has to be close enough to hit the stop or reverse in under 3 seconds!

Tell me again why feeding a chipper solo is safe?????

My condolences to the family of this man.


----------



## Plasmech (Sep 6, 2009)

I met a guy in Toronto once who saw an aircraft mechanic walk into the arc of a Dash-8 prop. What a mess. There were some kids in front of him who witnessed it too, the airline immediately whisked them away for psychological counseling. 

I've also pictures of a mechanic who was injected into a CFM-56 (737 engine). Well they weren't exactly pictures of the mechanic but rather shards of bloody blue jeans draped over the fan and compressor blades. Probably cost several million dollars to rebuild that -56. 

Sometimes when death comes, it comes real damn fast.


----------



## Plasmech (Sep 6, 2009)

*here's a picture of the engine*

Attached.


----------



## lego1970 (Sep 6, 2009)

Plasmech said:


> I met a guy in Toronto once who saw an aircraft mechanic walk into the arc of a Dash-8 prop. What a mess. There were some kids in front of him who witnessed it too, the airline immediately whisked them away for psychological counseling.
> 
> I've also pictures of a mechanic who was injected into a CFM-56 (737 engine). Well they weren't exactly pictures of the mechanic but rather shards of bloody blue jeans draped over the fan and compressor blades. Probably cost several million dollars to rebuild that -56.
> 
> Sometimes when death comes, it comes real damn fast.




When I was of high school age, I worked at a local airport fueling, washing, plowing the runway, etc. There was a real small twin engine plane that had to be jump started every once in awhile. The plug in to jump start it was along the nose of the aircraft about halfway between the tip of the nose and the leading edge of the wings. Once started you would have to hug the nose so you didn't come into contact with the prop as you walked back out towards the front of the aircraft. I think there was about 24+" between the nose and prop but it didn't feel like it once the engines fired up and that prop was roaring behind you. For whatever reason (I can't remember) you were never taught to come at the plug by crawling under the wing towards it and for whatever reason the manufacture put the plug at a horrible location. The only thing I can think of why they put it there was because the small nose was filled with aviation electronics, nose gear, batteries and maybe because the ice that slings off the prop and hits the nose could damage the plug in flap thingy. At least that's all I could come up with.


----------



## Plasmech (Sep 6, 2009)

Turboprops are hella dangerous at night-time...you can't really see the prop circle, it's like an arc of invisible death...




lego1970 said:


> When I was of high school age, I worked at a local airport fueling, washing, plowing the runway, etc. There was a real small twin engine plane that had to be jump started every once in awhile. The plug in to jump start it was along the nose of the aircraft about halfway between the tip of the nose and the leading edge of the wings. Once started you would have to hug the nose so you didn't come into contact with the prop as you walked back out towards the front of the aircraft. I think there was about 24+" between the nose and prop but it didn't feel like it once the engines fired up and that prop was roaring behind you. For whatever reason (I can't remember) you were never taught to come at the plug by crawling under the wing towards it and for whatever reason the manufacture put the plug at a horrible location. The only thing I can think of why they put it there was because the small nose was filled with aviation electronics, nose gear, batteries and maybe because the ice that slings off the prop and hits the nose could damage the plug in flap thingy. At least that's all I could come up with.


----------

