It was a hell of a ride...

[TheJollyLogger]

I am home!

 

[ropensaddle]

All of us old orthopedic wrecks'll need push button up n down, push button start n stop trimsaws, inline oxygen feeds, the works!

There's more satisfaction doing fine class one pruning of huge trees, than being their grim reaper however respectfully.

I know a few 70 plus climbers myself, but they're only good for a half day climbin.

I'm not any good for much more than half a day myself lately!

Don't tell me that hospital didn't hook you up on some kinda morphine during your stay Rope!

You ain't that tough!

jomoco

Well yes at hospital I had stuff but after out they gave prescription i never filled as I can't stand codeine rather hurt than be sick!

 

[hseII]

This Thread Needs Bumping.

 

[ropensaddle]

This Thread Needs Bumping.

Lol relax I'm still climbing I just got new toy rope wrench now I can see extending 20 more years to my climbing

 

[TheJollyLogger]

Good to hear it. We just settled my case last week, but my climbing days are over, I'm afraid. Shoulder has good days and bad days, but it could have been way worse.

 

[ropensaddle]

Good to hear it. We just settled my case last week, but my climbing days are over, I'm afraid. Shoulder has good days and bad days, but it could have been way worse.

I hear you on good and bad days I had them since but my only choice was to get back on rope so i did! If you ever get up this way holler I'll give you a wraptor ride

 

[murphy4trees]

I thought you broke it while rigging it. Its even worse with the new information!

Ya that just sounds like one of those 1 in 10,000 that there is just no way to predict .... its a matter of pdds... knowing species that are inclined to such weaknesses helps too.. around here its dead ash... even if the top liooks good the base can give out.. Buddy of mine went up a lrge dead ash... made the first cut and the whole tree fell out from under him... fortunatelty he was tied to a nearby tree.

 

[rarefish383]

Wow, I can't believe it's been 2 years. I'm glad you are still with us, and still hanging out on AS.My Dad took a bad fall when he was 60, about 30'. He was the most safety oriented person I ever met. Yet, he broke one of his own cardinal rules. Never use some one else's equipment. Our shop was about 35-40 miles out in the country from most of our work. Our top climber lived "down county", so we let him meet us on site. One day he didn't show. Dad swung by to check on us, he was running estimates in his Cadillac, so none of his gear. He got our climbers gear and started elevating the roof line of a two story house. In a blink he was on the ground. Broke his left shoulder, hip, and ankle. He landed on his Super EZ, cracking several vertebrae. When we inspected our climbers rope we found several spots where the inner core had been pinched off. Most of our work was in high end neighborhoods, where we seldom dropped big logs across lawns. We would chunk the stem down in firewood size blocks making one dent in the ground that could be filled with a wheel barrow of soil. Our climber had the bad habit of dropping chunks on his rope. We figured he had dropped chunks and the sharp edge of the chunk had pinched the rope on roots or rocks. That was in the early days of braided rope. Dad recovered and continued to climb some into his 70's. He passed in 2004 from prostate cancer at 81. I just turned 60. I haven't been in a tree since I got my knee replaced last November, and it really surprised me, I don't miss it. I still play with my mill and my guns. I just bought a Savage 1919 NRA Match rifle. The second 5 shot group, at 25 yards, was a single hole about 3/8 of an inch. There is life after tree work. If you have to let it go, let it go. God bless, Joe.

 

[hseII]

Wow, I can't believe it's been 2 years. I'm glad you are still with us, and still hanging out on AS.My Dad took a bad fall when he was 60, about 30'. He was the most safety oriented person I ever met. Yet, he broke one of his own cardinal rules. Never use some one else's equipment. Our shop was about 35-40 miles out in the country from most of our work. Our top climber lived "down county", so we let him meet us on site. One day he didn't show. Dad swung by to check on us, he was running estimates in his Cadillac, so none of his gear. He got our climbers gear and started elevating the roof line of a two story house. In a blink he was on the ground. Broke his left shoulder, hip, and ankle. He landed on his Super EZ, cracking several vertebrae. When we inspected our climbers rope we found several spots where the inner core had been pinched off. Most of our work was in high end neighborhoods, where we seldom dropped big logs across lawns. We would chunk the stem down in firewood size blocks making one dent in the ground that could be filled with a wheel barrow of soil. Our climber had the bad habit of dropping chunks on his rope. We figured he had dropped chunks and the sharp edge of the chunk had pinched the rope on roots or rocks. That was in the early days of braided rope. Dad recovered and continued to climb some into his 70's. He passed in 2004 from prostate cancer at 81. I just turned 60. I haven't been in a tree since I got my knee replaced last November, and it really surprised me, I don't miss it. I still play with my mill and my guns. I just bought a Savage 1919 NRA Match rifle. The second 5 shot group, at 25 yards, was a single hole about 3/8 of an inch. There is life after tree work. If you have to let it go, let it go. God bless, Joe.

Great Post.

 

[Pete6]

Did you rigging the top mean you intended to catch and lower it, but it failed prior to any rigging forces coming into play?

So even if you'd said the heck with any rigging, and free felled the upper 15 foot head, the tree would've broke at the base anyway?

You're shakin my faith in mother nature's ability to weed out the weak and flawed trees with wind n rain.

I like nice violent storms. Makes my job safer. I often look up at iffy leaners thinkin, heck, if it stayed up in that last blow? This'll be cake!

jomoco

"
"I like nice violent storms. Makes my job safer. I often look up at iffy leaners thinkin, heck, if it stayed up in that last blow? This'll be cake!"

I think this is a false and potentially dangerous notion of security. When storms take a tree, trees or just sections of a tree out they can expose other trees or limbs to wind-loading they have never been exposed to before. Trees often , not invariably, put on strength in relation to the loads they experience. For example: think of a square forest losing trees on the edge which have sheltered to next row for years on end.

 

[TheJollyLogger]

Hey yall

 

[mncutter]

I’ve just found this post now. Just a homeowner that messes with saws. How did you end up coming out on this whole deal?

 

[TheJollyLogger]

I’ve just found this post now. Just a homeowner that messes with saws. How did you end up coming out on this whole deal?

Well, I am doing ok, building docks in Corpus Christi. Shoulder still gives me trouble sometimes, but not too bad.

 

[beardface]

You know what sucks, is anytime soomething goes wrong, I always go back and figure out what I could have done differently. This was just a case of the wrong damn tree. It's kind of haunting me, because I wouldn't hve done anything differently with the information I had.

Nothing mate - I’ve never ever trusted aspen or any poplars they are the worst for misbehaving and simply too brittle to trust, hinges pop well before or simply never hold and yeah, I hate them . I rarely snatch and dislike lowering even if it’s off a different stem to my anchor. I’m glad you are ok but you ain’t alone dude , don’t sweat it , of all the aspens/poplars I’ve had to dismantle 70% have been real nightmares with a few memorable specimens nearly taking me with them or leaving me feeling like that’s the last one I do...
best wishes and speedy recovery.

 

[TheJollyLogger]

Nothing mate - I’ve never ever trusted aspen or any poplars they are the worst for misbehaving and simply too brittle to trust, hinges pop well before or simply never hold and yeah, I hate them . I rarely snatch and dislike lowering even if it’s off a different stem to my anchor. I’m glad you are ok but you ain’t alone dude , don’t sweat it , of all the aspens/poplars I’ve had to dismantle 70% have been real nightmares with a few memorable specimens nearly taking me with them or leaving me feeling like that’s the last one I do...
best wishes and speedy recovery.

Well, you climb 10,000 trees and 99% doesn't sound so good, lol. I think of that day a lot, and there are many things I could have done differently, but water under the bridge...

 

[rarefish383]

I remember way back when this happened. I'm glad you're here with us, literally , and you're still here just to hang out. I used to be on the Safety Committee at UPS. They used to say I had more safety info than the safety books. Most of it came from insurance pamphlets when I was still working for Dad in the tree business. One thing they called the "Factor of three", was most accidents have three points of human failure to take place, if only two points happen, it's a near miss and we never hear of it. One case we had on video. We were asked to watch the video and tell who was at fault. I was the only one that got the question right. A teen age boy in a new Camaro, with his girl friend, ran a red light at over 100 miles per hour and hit the UPS truck broadside, killing both kids. The Police did not charge the driver. Every one in the class said it was the kids fault. I said that clearly, in the video, the driver had his computer board on the steering wheel texting. The light turned green and he pulled out. One, he did not look left, right, left, per UPS procedure, and two, he did not count one, two, three, before pulling out, per UPS procedure. If the driver had of done either of those things he would be telling his friends about the crazy kid. If the kid hadn't of been going 100 MPH and ran a red light, he'd still be alive. The failures don't have to be on one person. When we get over pointing fingers and placing blame, and looking for the root cause, we can actually eliminate some accidents.

I think analyzing every mess up is a healthy thing. Next time you see or hear of an accident, try to find one point of human failure. Once you find one, I bet you can find two more. Not coming to work on that day isn't the answer. Forget about whose fault it is, no blame, no finger pointing. Just look for the root cause, so it can be avoided in the future.

UPS charged the driver with failure to follow procedures, resulting in an accident, and took him off the road for a year, and put him to work inside loading trailers. The driver admitted he was running late and as soon as the light turned green he jumped on it.

 

[TheJollyLogger]

I remember way back when this happened. I'm glad you're here with us, literally , and you're still here just to hang out. I used to be on the Safety Committee at UPS. They used to say I had more safety info than the safety books. Most of it came from insurance pamphlets when I was still working for Dad in the tree business. One thing they called the "Factor of three", was most accidents have three points of human failure to take place, if only two points happen, it's a near miss and we never hear of it. One case we had on video. We were asked to watch the video and tell who was at fault. I was the only one that got the question right. A teen age boy in a new Camaro, with his girl friend, ran a red light at over 100 miles per hour and hit the UPS truck broadside, killing both kids. The Police did not charge the driver. Every one in the class said it was the kids fault. I said that clearly, in the video, the driver had his computer board on the steering wheel texting. The light turned green and he pulled out. One, he did not look left, right, left, per UPS procedure, and two, he did not count one, two, three, before pulling out, per UPS procedure. If the driver had of done either of those things he would be telling his friends about the crazy kid. If the kid hadn't of been going 100 MPH and ran a red light, he'd still be alive. The failures don't have to be on one person. When we get over pointing fingers and placing blame, and looking for the root cause, we can actually eliminate some accidents.

I think analyzing every mess up is a healthy thing. Next time you see or hear of an accident, try to find one point of human failure. Once you find one, I bet you can find two more. Not coming to work on that day isn't the answer. Forget about whose fault it is, no blame, no finger pointing. Just look for the root cause, so it can be avoided in the future.

UPS charged the driver with failure to follow procedures, resulting in an accident, and took him off the road for a year, and put him to work inside loading trailers. The driver admitted he was running late and as soon as the light turned green he jumped on it.

Believe me fish, I have revisited that day many times, both awake and asleep... and yes there were plenty of points of failure... For my part, I shouldn't have taken that big a top with a groundie I didn't fully trust, which meant I was just climbing to get out of there, etc, etc...

 

[pdqdl]

Bump!

 

[Rickochet]

Cutting wood can be an expensive and painful adventure. Praying for your quick healing!

 

[oldguy]

I rolled to the righr at the last second, took the hit on my shoulder.Didnt hit my head or lise conciousness, but it didnt do my shouldrr much good.View attachment 363788

Oh, Ive got x rays like that!