this is a very interesting conversation.
I have a very close friend who was a tree man his whole life. He's got over 4,000 jumps in and only stopped when he was 75, ten years ago. He only fell once from a tree. He made a stupid mistake for the second time. The first time, I was there on the ground and saved him. we were taking down a tree over a concrete pool patio. He had been experimenting with a technique of using the excess rope on his climb line to lower branches when he worked alone. He'd use that and take up a second rope, even two with him. His mind must have wandered that day, because I watched in horror as I saw him start the saw to cut a branch that he had tied the tail of his climbing rope to. After some screaming from me, he shut the saw off and just shook his head. we still talk about that one. If I hadn't been there he wouldn't be dying from old age right now, that concrete would surely have killed him. about a month later he made that same mistake again, but that time over soft dirt from 40 feet up. Another close buddy of mine was there on the ground but didn't catch it and he broke his leg in three places after the branch pulled him down out of the tree.
He always said I was afraid of heights, but now I have a bucket truck. What he never knew was that I always wanted to "get up there". I almost jumped out of an airplane with him one day. He took me up, me with a chute and all, to watch him bail out and the pilot banked the plane sharp as he went out the door so I could see him go down. I was sitting on the floor backwards to the pilot, hanging on to his seat brace with my right arm. All I had to do was relax it, and out I'd have gone. But that would have gotten him and the pilot into big trouble, so I stayed put.
I have to say that when I'm maxed out with my short little 55 foot rig and I look down, that damn truck looks like a fly speck. maybe someday I'll get used to it.
can't imagine 75 feet.
