Homeowner Dies after Falling from Tree - Hit by Branch

[Buckeye_Jim]

Just heard about this one tonight.

Here's the link, http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ibsys/20050424/lo_wews/2684624

but I'll quote:

A Parma Heights [Ohio] man was killed Friday [April 22] when a tree limb fell on him.
Michael Schmidt, 47, fell from a tree in his back yard on Oakwood Drive, police said.
When he fell, a 10-inch thick branch landed on his chest.
He was rushed to the hospital, where he later died.

I couldn't find anything else online about it. Very sad.

Not too much to learn from this report, but thought I'd report it.

I will say, apart from this poor fellow's accident, which I really don't know anything about, that due to recent storm damage in my town, a lot of homeowners are trying to fix their own tree problems. I notice the cut-from-a-ladder method seems to be very popular. So much can go wrong.

A fatality like the one above gets a small blurp in the local paper. I wonder how many serious injuries short of dying there are among the homeowner popluation that tries to handle an involved tree issue on their own.

 

[MasterBlaster]

I wonder how it "fell" on him.

 

[Buckeye_Jim]

Yeah, I'm not sure. Maybe he came down with it. I guess you don't need to fall too far for it to be real bad for you if you have a big piece of wood coming down on top of you.

 

[MasterBlaster]

Ten inches?

 

[begleytree]

maybe a hanger he was knocking loose? Sad.
-Ralph

 

[Newfie]

Ten inches?

I think that would be plenty big enough to kill someone. I know I wouldn't want 300-400 pounds dropped out of tree onto my chest after I fell out of the tree.

I often wonder why they (homeowners) leave the ladder in the tree for months at a time? Seems like they are just inviting disaster for a little one to come along and satisfy their curiosity.

 

[Lumberjack]

My dad is currently watching a ladder propped up on a tree limb. We speculate that they are going to drop the top out.

My dad says the ladder has been there a coupla weeks.

I wouldnt want 400 pounds dropped on my chest from any height, excluding the fall. I imagine that 400 pounds falling 10 feet is quite a lot of kenetic energy, dont feel like figuring it up.