chad556
ArboristSite Operative
I haven't been doing this kind of work for a long time, just a few months now actually. As a beginner, I have to say that many of the stories and news articles that I have read in this forum have probably kept me alive and have certainly impacted the way I look at safety. That said I feel like I owe it to the community here to give back by telling my story (as embarrassing and stupid as it may be).
It started with two red oak trees that needed to be climbed. I installed my climbing line in one and spur climbed up the other one (the one on the left in the picture) I made my way to the first branch and walked out about halfway on it. The angle on the photo is bad but I marked where the cut was in red. I swung my flipline around the branch, dug my gaffs in, got comfortable, and started up my saw. I started out with an undercut wedge and then deftly fliped my bar to the other side of the branch and started my back cut. What once was tricky for me was finally starting to come naturally, or so i thought.
The piece I was cutting was big, 500 pounds maybe 25' long by about 8"-10" diameter where i was making my cut. One guy couldn't drag it on his own, lets put it that way. I was tired, it was winding on down to the end of the day and somehow I misjudged where to make the back cut and made it about 4" higher than i needed. Sure enough I heard the thing cracking and starting to move, I prepared myself for the recoil in the branch as all that weight separated and all of the sudden... BAM. I was slammed right into the branch by my lanyard, my whole lower half being squeezed hard and my leg, still gaffed into the tree painfully hyper extended. All my breath was squeezed out of me and it was impossible to inhale.
The branch had split right down the middle, ripping in half and taking my lanyard(and me) with it. My hand rushed in a panic to my flip line but immediately i saw that loosening it under that much tension was hopeless. I then remembered the knife I carry on the back of my harness, it has a guthook, serrated curved blade and a razor sharp blade that would cut through my rope in a few quick strokes. It would be close, but I figured that I would have just enough time before I passed out to reach back, get the knife out and cut myself free. Luckly, at this point I realized that I had my still running 200T in my left hand. I revved up and swung the bar right through that blaze rope. The line snapped and flew apart and I just lied there on that branch gasping for air for at least a good minute. When I could move again I painfully sat back in my harness and descended right into a utility vehicle and got whisked off to the ER.
My back was killing me and I couldn't sit up or stand without pain and I had to walk with a limp. Everything checked out fine thankfully, no permanent damage (except to that flipline). I got two days off work to think about my stupidity and a bottle of pain pills. The moral of the story is to be precise with your cuts and watch where you have all of your ropes, you really can kill yourself pretty easily if you get sloppy. I will never make this kind of mistake again. I easily could have died and that freaks me out, I'm just 25 years old and thats way too young. I owe that little saw my life for cutting that rope.
Anyways, I have pretty much made a full recovery (the accident took place on Wednesday) just a little pain in my knee from where it was bent backwards over the tree. I am hoping that by posting this it will add to the library of close calls and tragedy that we all can learn from and use to stay safe out there.
It started with two red oak trees that needed to be climbed. I installed my climbing line in one and spur climbed up the other one (the one on the left in the picture) I made my way to the first branch and walked out about halfway on it. The angle on the photo is bad but I marked where the cut was in red. I swung my flipline around the branch, dug my gaffs in, got comfortable, and started up my saw. I started out with an undercut wedge and then deftly fliped my bar to the other side of the branch and started my back cut. What once was tricky for me was finally starting to come naturally, or so i thought.
The piece I was cutting was big, 500 pounds maybe 25' long by about 8"-10" diameter where i was making my cut. One guy couldn't drag it on his own, lets put it that way. I was tired, it was winding on down to the end of the day and somehow I misjudged where to make the back cut and made it about 4" higher than i needed. Sure enough I heard the thing cracking and starting to move, I prepared myself for the recoil in the branch as all that weight separated and all of the sudden... BAM. I was slammed right into the branch by my lanyard, my whole lower half being squeezed hard and my leg, still gaffed into the tree painfully hyper extended. All my breath was squeezed out of me and it was impossible to inhale.
The branch had split right down the middle, ripping in half and taking my lanyard(and me) with it. My hand rushed in a panic to my flip line but immediately i saw that loosening it under that much tension was hopeless. I then remembered the knife I carry on the back of my harness, it has a guthook, serrated curved blade and a razor sharp blade that would cut through my rope in a few quick strokes. It would be close, but I figured that I would have just enough time before I passed out to reach back, get the knife out and cut myself free. Luckly, at this point I realized that I had my still running 200T in my left hand. I revved up and swung the bar right through that blaze rope. The line snapped and flew apart and I just lied there on that branch gasping for air for at least a good minute. When I could move again I painfully sat back in my harness and descended right into a utility vehicle and got whisked off to the ER.
My back was killing me and I couldn't sit up or stand without pain and I had to walk with a limp. Everything checked out fine thankfully, no permanent damage (except to that flipline). I got two days off work to think about my stupidity and a bottle of pain pills. The moral of the story is to be precise with your cuts and watch where you have all of your ropes, you really can kill yourself pretty easily if you get sloppy. I will never make this kind of mistake again. I easily could have died and that freaks me out, I'm just 25 years old and thats way too young. I owe that little saw my life for cutting that rope.
Anyways, I have pretty much made a full recovery (the accident took place on Wednesday) just a little pain in my knee from where it was bent backwards over the tree. I am hoping that by posting this it will add to the library of close calls and tragedy that we all can learn from and use to stay safe out there.
did you say you had yer flip line around trunk of the branch you whee cutting?
