How To Save Your Life !

[arbadacarba]

I joined this site after watching Axmen and laughing with friends at how unsafe their practices are. Then I thought a little more about it and realized how lucky I was to be trained at an early age how not to do myself in in the woods. My first suggestion to anyone working around trees is to try to get a copy of an old book called " The Feller's and Bucker's Handbook" put out in the seventies by the WCB up here in British Columbia. I personally know of at least three deaths that could have been avoided by reading this book before.
My second suggestion is a little more brutal. If you have an employee that insists on doing something unsafe after a warning ( even something as simple as carrying an unsheathed chainsaw with the bar over their shoulder ) fire their ass - they may resent you for it, but you just may be saving their lives.

Lest anyone think I may be unqualified in suggesting this let me say that I wrote the OSHA for the forest company I worked with in the early eighties. This is what we did, and our accident rate went down to a fraction of its former level.

One final point about that time was that we found that the second most fatal occupation after topping and felling was trucking. Why? - smoke breaks on the opposite side of the truck while the truck was being unloaded! Thats how easy it can be to reach your end.

Use your heads, enjoy the outdoors and, as some old friends used to say to me "be careful out there"

 

[Wolfcsm]

Good ideas.

People who choose to do the wrong thing after they have been shown the correct way are just an ccident and a lawsuit waiting to happen.

Hal

 

[BuddhaKat]

The book is available for free download at http://courses.forestry.ubc.ca/ben####son/FOPRLibrary/Library/Safe Work/WCB fallers_buckers.pdf.

Arbadacarba, thank you very much for this post. Very, very much appreciated. Rep to you for that.

**edit** I just noticed this was your first post. Nice way to start.

***EDIT*** It appears the cussword censor is blocking out the URL. Try replacing the #### with the word d i c k.

 

[Taxmantoo]

The book is available for free download at...

Bloody forum munger. The professor's last name had four characters in it which aren't allowed (a nickname for a guy named Richard) so it butchered the link to the professor's download directory. Try this link:

http://tinyurl.com/dxa9yj

 

[pdqdl]

[parts deleted for brevity]

... we found that the second most fatal occupation after topping and felling was trucking. Why? - smoke breaks on the opposite side of the truck while the truck was being unloaded! Thats how easy it can be to reach your end.

...

OSHA says that trucking is the #1 most dangerous job. In front of the entire timber industry. So naturally the truckers in a logging company are at high risk.

 

[joesawer]

I joined this site after watching Axmen and laughing with friends at how unsafe their practices are. Then I thought a little more about it and realized how lucky I was to be trained at an early age how not to do myself in in the woods. My first suggestion to anyone working around trees is to try to get a copy of an old book called " The Feller's and Bucker's Handbook" put out in the seventies by the WCB up here in British Columbia. I personally know of at least three deaths that could have been avoided by reading this book before.
My second suggestion is a little more brutal. If you have an employee that insists on doing something unsafe after a warning ( even something as simple as carrying an unsheathed chainsaw with the bar over their shoulder ) fire their ass - they may resent you for it, but you just may be saving their lives.

Lest anyone think I may be unqualified in suggesting this let me say that I wrote the OSHA for the forest company I worked with in the early eighties. This is what we did, and our accident rate went down to a fraction of its former level.

One final point about that time was that we found that the second most fatal occupation after topping and felling was trucking. Why? - smoke breaks on the opposite side of the truck while the truck was being unloaded! Thats how easy it can be to reach your end.

Use your heads, enjoy the outdoors and, as some old friends used to say to me "be careful out there"

How many people have been injured or killed from carrying an unsheathed saw over their shoulder?

 

[arbadacarba]

When we checked it was over thirty in the last five years.(remember this was in the early eighties and things were going full blast) The problem is the teeth are lined up with your jugular and are facing forward on the top of the bar. Unfortunately, most people carry the saw exactly this way to keep the oil and sawdust residue away from their necks.On any decent size saw the cut will be up to the tooth depth - or approximately 1/4 inch. Go look in a mirror and check out your jugular's depth and then imagine what can happen when you pitch forward! A lot of people have found this out the hard way.

 

[BC WetCoast]

I joined this site after watching Axmen and laughing with friends at how unsafe their practices are. Then I thought a little more about it and realized how lucky I was to be trained at an early age how not to do myself in in the woods. My first suggestion to anyone working around trees is to try to get a copy of an old book called " The Feller's and Bucker's Handbook" put out in the seventies by the WCB up here in British Columbia. I personally know of at least three deaths that could have been avoided by reading this book before.
My second suggestion is a little more brutal. If you have an employee that insists on doing something unsafe after a warning ( even something as simple as carrying an unsheathed chainsaw with the bar over their shoulder ) fire their ass - they may resent you for it, but you just may be saving their lives.

Lest anyone think I may be unqualified in suggesting this let me say that I wrote the OSHA for the forest company I worked with in the early eighties. This is what we did, and our accident rate went down to a fraction of its former level.

One final point about that time was that we found that the second most fatal occupation after topping and felling was trucking. Why? - smoke breaks on the opposite side of the truck while the truck was being unloaded! Thats how easy it can be to reach your end.

Use your heads, enjoy the outdoors and, as some old friends used to say to me "be careful out there"

Before you get carried away firing everybody for safety violations you better:
- define on paper what is a firable safety violation
- be prepared to treat everyone equally, regardless whether it's your highest productivity climber or newest groundie
- be prepared for a revolving door of new hires
- be prepared for firing without cause lawsuits. While you can fire anyone you want, the courts here have set certain standards and compensation that must be paid to someone who is fired without cause. And firing with cause almost has to involve a criminal offence.

 

[buzz sawyer]

Before you get carried away firing everybody for safety violations you better:
- define on paper what is a firable safety violation
- be prepared to treat everyone equally, regardless whether it's your highest productivity climber or newest groundie
- be prepared for a revolving door of new hires
- be prepared for firing without cause lawsuits. While you can fire anyone you want, the courts here have set certain standards and compensation that must be paid to someone who is fired without cause. And firing with cause almost has to involve a criminal offence.

In WV and other states, you can fire someone for no reason at all - you simply tell them you no longer require their services and the less said, the better. You still need to be prepared for lawsuits but when you start to give reasons like safety issues or performance, you open the door wider.

 

[arbadacarba]

All valid points BCWetcoast, especially putting things down on paper right from the start. My intent is not to fire people but to give them a chance to thrive in a potentially highly enjoyable environment. This is a little hard to do if you get killed like the worker at Lions Bay who was eaten by a "land clam" a couple of years ago because nobody thought to tell him not to stand in a blowdown hole that still had the tree attached. To me, that is absolutely inexcusable and legalities shouldn't even enter into it!

 

[rtrsam]

I was working with a crew that had a problem with hard hats. Every time i walked out on the project they were working on, maybe half the crew would be without hard hats. So we did like suggested here, set up a safety meeting, discussed the importance of hard hats, had everybody sign an agreement to wear hard hats. Went out next day, the first guy I saw did not have his hard hat on. Fired him on the spot.

No more problems. People wore their hard hats religiously after that. No problems with getting sued or anythign else. Although, on the drive back to the shop with the fired employee, I did tell him, "If you choose to resign I have no choice but to accept your resignation before the termination with fault (firing) goes through." The kid quit instead of taking the firing. This was maybe ten years ago.

 

[Adam in VA]

How many people have been injured or killed from carrying an unsheathed saw over their shoulder?

Well to tell the truth I have nicked my fingers, wrist, shoulders, and neck a few times from carrying an unsheathed saw. Nothing major, but a cut that gets some bar oil in it can at times get really infected. On a more serious note I once saw a guy carrying an unsheathed saw on his shoulder, the saw slipped off and swung around as he tried to control it. The unsheathed bar ended up getting jabbed into the guy's face who was walking just to his side and a little behind him. The guy ended up needing several stitches and one of the cutters just missed his eye. So I personally keep a scabbard on my saw at all times other than when it's being used, cleaned, or maintained.

 

[joesawer]

I am thinking that I don't need another nanny state law telling me not to do what I have been doing safely for years.
I know where my jugular is and I know how sharp my chain is and where it is, But I will be danged if I need one more piece of "safety" equipment to carry. Eventually the "safety" equipment load becomes unsafe.
Just because some people cannot safely carry a saw does not mean that no one can. Hell most people can't even get to where I am expected to run a saw.
I have fallen before and had to pitch the saw off of my shoulder to get it away from me. But I have had to pitch a running saw to get it away from me also.
It is possible that I could fall tomorrow and cut my jugular and bleed out in the woods. It is also possible that I could get struck by lighteneing, ate by a shark, or die in a car wreck, but I still plan on leaving the house.

 

[blackoak]

Good luck Joe. I hope you make it home safe......