So I was trimming this palm tree...

[jefflovstrom]

Yeah, well there are obviously thousands of pros capable of pruning or removing date palms without getting impaled by them, even after pruning thousands of them for decades.

Brush up on your pruning techniques and put away the stupid polesaws!

Nothing about palms are easy, and date palms will separate the men from the boys real quick in my experience here in SoCal.

A pole saw to prune a date palm practically guarantees a trip to the hospital.

All you need is a sharp midsize chainsaw like a 262 xp husky, saddle and gaffs with a steelcore lanyard and the right technique.

Fan palms kill far more climbers here than date palms do.

jomoco

I wonder where Jon is.
Jeff

 

[TreeSurfer]

quit #####ing and just prune the damn tree and get the check at the end of the day. if the thorns bug you soo much then charge more. i add on $50 to palms that have thorns and get most of the jobs. home owners are understanding when i explain.

 

[mikewhite85]

I wonder where Jon is.
Jeff

Haven't seen this post in a while...


I have also wondered where he is too. Hope he's doing alright. What is his company called so we can google him?

 

[mikewhite85]

I haven't seen outofmytree in a long time either

 

[superjunior]

Thanks treeMDS, I have not climbed production in 5 years, But I never before that had dis-respect for those who move up. My experience helps me and and my guys. They dont need a young, eager, manager with little or no experience of climbing telling them what to do.
Jeff

old post but what the hay - deserves a like

 

[jefflovstrom]

Haven't seen this post in a while...


I have also wondered where he is too. Hope he's doing alright. What is his company called so we can google him?

He is a contract climber, last time I saw him was over a year ago.
Jeff

 

[TreeSurfer]

hey jeff, long time no see buddy. how goes it?

 

[jefflovstrom]

Jon was an interesting guy.

Dear Diary,

It has been 2 days since the expedition by our colleagues Jomoco & Lovstrom departed in search of the hallowed "Old School Method for Pruning CI Date Palms".
I worry for their well being for we have had no word in the past day.
The men are in high spirits, but that subversive 'Doc' has been telling stories around the campfire. Roots has said he's staying away from skirt and this concerns me. He could go the same way as SoMe of the other men.
The popcorn supplies are holding up ok but we had to send runners for soda.
In God we trust.
opcorn:

 

[jefflovstrom]

Dear Diary,

DISASTER!!!
At dusk last night some of the men found an outgrowth of C. indica. In the ensuing fracas the entire beer ration and most of the popcorn rations were lost. If TMD hears about this, (and the Dan hears everything), the men may learn that the 'Sticks and Stones' idiom is wildly inaccurate. Runners have been dispatched.

Morale has begun flagging. Treevet, our spiritual leader, has been trying to shore up the men's spirits by showing old Patrick Swayze movies, although he remains ideologically opposed to our quest.

On a more positive note we have received word back from the Jomoco Lovstrom expedition. Reports are sketchy but some progress is being made. It is clear that the strain is affecting Jomoco as he addressed me as a woman throughout his last missive. I reassured him of my and the men's continued support for his mission. As always we pray to God for their safe and speedy return.

In God we trust.
opcorn:

Funny!
Jeff on a Sunday morning reading archives. :biggrin:

 

[jefflovstrom]

Dear Diary,
Why didn’t I listen to my wife? She told me I was crazy to embark on a venture such as this, with a company composed only of Arborists. After more than a week in the wilderness, we have enough firewood to put an Arborist on the moon, but do you think any-one will do the dishes? The only woman in our company, Bermie, is no help at all. If anyone even mentions dishes within earshot of her, she guns her chainsaw and laughs manically.

It has come to my attention that NC has an ongoing ‘condition’. In his own words, he has been ‘nuts his whole life’. Given the early age of diagnosis one must question the wisdom of whoever taught this man how to use a chainsaw.

This endless waiting combined with the festivities is beginning to become predictable. Every evening of inebriated merriment gives way to a morning of bleakness and hangover somehow worse than the last. Despair over the lack of progress in the Jomoco Lovstrom expedition kicks in by late afternoon and this in turn, leads back to inebriation.

In God we trust
opcorn:

:hmm3grin2orange:
Jeff

 

[jefflovstrom]

Honestly. You boys have the worst excuses. In the BS sweepstakes I had money on "the dog ate my homework".

What is wrong with posting your own work? There is no surer indication of insecurity than having to borrow names to lend yourselves credibility.

If I ask a question of Treeseer or John Paul Sanborn or Treevet or Olddirty or Ropensaddle or any one of a dozen seasoned veterans they can post a picture of their own work in an hour. I don't put myself in their class but my pictures are up there to be picked apart too. But you pair of "palm experts" have so little of your own evidence that you have to borrow a video of another climber that is so old its in VHS?

I bring this up because I really think you are back on AS with a different name,, maybe the word 'expert' is in your handle. You know who you are.
Jeff

 

[jefflovstrom]

I never scorned anyone. Get it straight fair maiden. For some reason, you dont like me, I dont care, but I and Jon and many others have done what we say, and you think we lie because we did not bring a production crew (video production crew), I dont plan the day with that in mind. In the mean-time, I dont lie and I have met Jon, you have not. We dont lie. If we say we do it , we do it.( in my case, did it) Probably more times than you ever wiped your butt. Yeah, Respect is a two way street.
Jeff
Happy New Year

If you are here with a different name,,Well, same.
Jeff

 

[jefflovstrom]

I haven't seen outofmytree in a long time either

Something tells me he is back,,
Jeff

 

[arborjockey]

YouTube

Power prune automated palm tree pruner

 

[KrayZ GG]

Hi there everyone I was wondering if someone could give me a bit of advice about this.

About 5 weeks ago I was cutting some large fronds off our Australian date palm and managed to basically haymaker a spike into my right index finger, hitting the bone and sliding down into the webbing between my index and middle finger about an inch. In trying to pull out of this asap after I realised what had happened, I pull back at rapid speed and nail the middle of my bottom section of the same right index finger with another big spike. It smashed into the bone and then I stopped completely to avoid another spike.

Immediately lots of blood but nothing serious, stubborn me got straight back to work. Less than 5 minutes later I became dizzy, disoriented, short of breath, unable to stand, ANDDD my heart was beating so hard that 10 minutes later when I was laying down on the lounge with a bowl of ice chips placed on my chest to cool me down, the bowel was visibly moving back and forth with my heart beat. Like mate it felt like mini Mike Tyson was in my chest using my heart as a speed bag!

I keep getting worse, my partner freaking out, she tells me I have most of the symptoms of an imminent heart attack. So stubborn me finally allows her to call an ambulance.

They get there 15 minutes later and inspect me and come to a similar conclusion. Ambo says Verbatim: “sir while we cannot force you to come to hospital with us, we seriously advise it as you seem to be in danger of a heart attack”.

I obviously go. Get there have and heart trace and ecg, chest xray and blood tests.. perfect health!?? Other than a slightly elevated heart rate and hard beating heart. I’m released from hospital at midnight. 2 weeks go by and every second I was awake, my heart is still rattling out of my rib cage, causing me pain, shortness of breath, bugger all sleep and a serious lack of energy!

So time goes on and by 4 weeks my heart seems to be more or less back to normal. Still not perfect but getting there.

Now my finger and hand is a completely different story. I cannot use my right index finger in any task that requires bending. It is soooo painful. A gentle press into the knuckle is like an hammer smash. I cannot make a fist, can’t put pressure on it etc.

Doctor examined it 3 weeks ago and said: “you probably have some swelling still with how far it went in etc, let’s wait a month and check the progress then.”
My doctor is great by the way, awesome guy and a person the really cares about his patients.

But, if anything it’s gotten worse and more painful. The thing I’m worried about most is infection. Now the question to my extremely jarring and long winded explanation!

Has this kind of thing happened to anyone else Re my symptoms and similar injury and if so, what was the outcome / methods to help ease pain etc?

If you made it this far, thanks so much for taking the time to read and thanks in advance for any help that I can get!

 

[pdqdl]

Well... I don't know anything about palm trees, nor the injuries and cuts associated. An accelerated or otherwise unnatural heartbeat released from a hospital sounds to me like you were a bit excited by the injury, with no real pathology involved. "Shock", as it is called, is a real, physiology problem, and it isn't just "in your head".

I'd suspect that since then, each time you remembered the even, your hearbeat went up on account of how your memory can influence your emotions, and subsequently your heart. We are, after all, emotionally connected to our bodies.

You didn't mention any finger X-rays for foreign objects. A good x-ray will find even the tiniest of foreign material embedded in your hand. You should call your doctor's office and ask for that to be done. It'll cost more, but if you go to an emergency room, the x-ray will probably be evaluated by a board-certified radiologist, which is a big, heaping-helping better than what your average MD will be able to do. Trust me on this: the radiologists are PhD-level experts, and the MDs are nowhere near as skilled. Also: Emergency and hospital x-ray machines tend to be a bit newer and better than the ones in the doctor's office.

The earlier parts of this rather old thread included a number of folks commenting that they had undetected splinters from the palm fronds. It sounds like a common problem, although I have no experience with them. I'd get it checked out. Any puncturing wound can form an abscess, and healing will always take longer with an embedded foreign object.

As to pain? Deep injuries can hurt a lot. Especially when they involve the tendons and ligaments around a joint.

 

[009Legend]

...it’s gotten worse and more painful. The thing I’m worried about most is infection. Now the question to my extremely jarring and long winded explanation!

Has this kind of thing happened to anyone else Re my symptoms and similar injury and if so, what was the outcome / methods to help ease pain etc?

Hey mate, had a similar experience a few years back.

A palm frond went through my glove and hit my radial nerve in my wrist. Hurt like buggery and for tiny bit I pulled out, the pain was disproportionate. Went to the ED the next morning on the advice of a doctor as if you touched the injury site, all of my digits tingled and two of my fingers twitched involuntary. It took many scans to identify the remains of the frond, as biomass doesn't present clearly on ultrasound but better than X-ray. Where it was lodged required plastic surgery for removal.

Palm fronds are known to carry clostridium bacteria, and one of the major risks that carries is clostridium myonecrosis. Now, it's been a few weeks so I reckon you're in the clear there (but I'm no doctor!) however, you could still have mild infection and inflammation, especially if you've not had any antibiotics. You may also have damaged bone and/or irritated your nerves.

My advice is to get it checked out. Palm fronds are no &#@$ing joke. I was lucky with mine that I had no permanent damage and still have full use of that hand. Yours sounds much nastier - all the grief I copped was from about 5-6mm and no bone was hit. Had I not suffered it, I wouldn't have believed it.

I echo pdqdl. I realise things work differently in the USA when it comes to health care, but see a doctor, see a doctor, see a doctor.

 

[pdqdl]

I looked into that a bit more, and it seems you are right about x-rays & palm spines. Keep in mind, however, that some radiolucent materials show up on x-rays almost as well as radiopaque. It depends on the relative density to human tissues.

Researching, I found this:

"Plain X-ray films cannot show the thorn pieces as they are radiolucent, but they help detect bone and joint changes, such as effusion and a periosteal reaction, which can be late presentations of this disease. Ultrasound is more helpful in localising the thorn particles and soft tissue changes but requires a skilled operator. Computerised tomography has greater sensitivity in identifying foreign particles, such as thorn pieces, than magnetic resonance imaging; however, the latter is more useful in detecting associated inflammation in the soft tissue"​

​

​

​

Don't wait until you look like this:​

​

These wounds were caused by the surgeon digging around, looking for spines and relieving the pressure caused by the injury and subsequent developments.​

​

Worth noting: this guy didn't even have any retained spines or other foreign bodies.​

​

​

 

[pdqdl]

I found this, regarding going back to the MD for proper treatment:

"Palm thorn injuries to the hand are frequent lesions in our area. When they are promptly identified and treated, a good result can be expected without further complications. But they can present as a serious problem in cases of late diagnosis and/or late treatment. We present two cases of palm thorn injuries to the hand that developed late complications because of a missed diagnosis or a late treatment. The first patient developed an osteomyelitis and the second case a chronic synovitis. Surgery was finally necessary in both cases providing a satisfactory result. Six months after the definitive treatment, both patients are painless, with full motion and free of infection. Once these injuries are identified they must be treated to avoid late complications. Thorns have to be removed to decrease the swelling response and the formation of foreign body granuloma. If a infection develops, an immediate treatment with surgical debridement and antibiotic therapy has to be instaured."​

 

[009Legend]

I looked into that a bit more, and it seems you are right about x-rays & palm spines. Keep in mind, however, that some radiolucent materials show up on x-rays almost as well as radiopaque. It depends on the relative density to human tissues.

Researching, I found this:

"Plain X-ray films cannot show the thorn pieces as they are radiolucent, but they help detect bone and joint changes, such as effusion and a periosteal reaction, which can be late presentations of this disease. Ultrasound is more helpful in localising the thorn particles and soft tissue changes but requires a skilled operator. Computerised tomography has greater sensitivity in identifying foreign particles, such as thorn pieces, than magnetic resonance imaging; however, the latter is more useful in detecting associated inflammation in the soft tissue"​

​

View attachment 1229542​

​

Don't wait until you look like this:​

View attachment 1229543​

These wounds were caused by the surgeon digging around, looking for spines and relieving the pressure caused by the injury and subsequent developments.​

​

Worth noting: this guy didn't even have any retained spines or other foreign bodies.​

​

​

Thanks for digging around - they were almost the exact words I was told by the radiologist explaining the ultrasound but couldn't remember them while composing my reply. It was almost six years ago now. It took multiple attempts on multiple days to locate the remains.

I believe your note. It was one of the weirdest injuries I've done, and I had no idea of the possible consequences. To the doctors, the risk of fatal gangrene or limited hand use was real. To me, it was, "just the worst splinter I've ever had!"

I really disliked palm trees, now I dislike them even more.