Tell Us About Your "OH NO's"

[rarefish383]

A while back I was elavating and taking a couple leads off a big Swamp Willow. These are tall clump trees, not the common Wheeping Willow. The cluster I was working on had about 10 trunks and I was tied into the tallest one. One lead I was removing was going over the fence of a horse farm next door. There was a parralell lead about 3 ft over the one I was taking off. So, I threw my safety over the top lead and started walking out on the lower one. At one point I came to an upright on the top lead so I had to unsnap my safety and move it around the upright. At the same point the bottom lead went kinda verticle with a branch about the size of my wrist sticking out. Knowing how brittle willow is I had my foot wedged into the crotch of the branch and trunck as tight as I could get it. Just as I reached back over the upper lead to resnap my safety, POW, the branch snapped off. My left arm was over the top lead and as I flew back ripped all of the skin off that arm. I grabbed for the upper trunk with my right arm taking all of the skin off that one. I swung about 20 feet back into the main trunk I was tied in on, spinning around to get my feet up to cushion the impact. When I got home I had no skin on both arms and the whole top half of my torso was a giant bruise.

We used to say in any accident there is a factor of 3. Meaning there are 3 points of human error to let the accident take place. If I analize that misshap I can find at least 3 points of error. Let me know what you think, then I'll post the errors I found, Joe.

 

[billy word]

close one

Back earlier in the summer I was removing a giant poplar in grant park Using a 70ton. I had bid the job "competativly" as they say. The tree was going to take at least twentyfive or more picks and I was pushed for time. The operator for the crane service would not let me ride the ball to further complicate the job. On about the third pick I under estimated the end weight on the 25'' plus lead, as the lead released it caught my climbing line and took me on what I thought was going to be my last ride! I shot up a good 20' and the line released. By some miracle of god i was left perched high up on anther lead like stepping off an amusement park ride. I looked down at the wide eyes of my crew in utter shock that I wasn't shattered, still tangled up in the inverted lead. Never again will I allow the almighty dollar to skew my judgment.

 

[Team Squirl]

Leaving your green horn by himself without instructions to not tough any equipment!

We were removing a small 20' deciduous. At one point during the day I had to take off and run back to the shop to pay a service tech for repairs on the AC unit. I was gone for maybe a half an hour. I got back and found that my Greenest guy ever had taken the initiative to limb up another cherry tree that wasn't included in the bid! The customer apparently asked him if he could cut some of the limbs off that were hanging over their fence since it was the neighbors tree.

He ended up cutting some of the longer branches with the use of my climbing saw. I have told him a million times to watch where he's cutting! I went looking for the dude and their was no sign of him. I feared the worst!!!
He was inside the house after he had set the chainsaw down on his hand while it was still spinning. Luckily by some weird coincidence he didn't damage any important parts of his hand. I don't think I have ever been that pissed off before.

 

[outofmytree]

Eek. Pick one.

Every honest climber has at least one......

My most recent was removing a dying Canary Island date palm. These are heavy duty palms and can weigh as much as 1/2 a tonne per metre for trunks 800mm wide. We set up drop bags at the base of the palm, a line of blocks 3 metres out and a second line of blocks 6 metres out. I push 1 block of the top about 12 metres up and it lands on the bags, rolls over the first row of blocks and like Evil Knevil jumps the second row of blocks and then smashes 3 sheets out of the fence.

Another Doh! moment....

 

[WalterTreeCare]

too many bullheaded "tree guys"

Eek. Pick one.

Every honest climber has at least one....

Yeah, i know what ya mean, we all have stupid things we've done, some wont admit to them because "it wasn't their fault".....MAN UP!

Just the other day spiked to the top of a hemlock about 40 ft away from a new porch, like a week old. I topped it and set a tag line, the guys set up the fiddle block on a port o wrap because of the lean towards this new porch. we tensioned the line a bit and i started my back cut. As soon as i cut through about a half inch the tree started fallin over. My notch was cut for a perfect fall against the lean. Little did we know, the inside of this hemlock was soft and falling apart. The notch didn't matter at that point and it all came down to my ground guys pulling at the last second. The spar was falling right for the center of the deck...."OH NO"......and it landed about 3" away from the bottom step's foundation. TOO CLOSE

 

[gwiley]

multiple saws in 100' pine

About 7 years ago a buddy and me were taking down some very tall pines and we attacked this 100'+ with 18" DBH. His saw was soon stuck due to his making a backcut with NO face cut :jawdrop:

I came to the rescue with a little John Deere and promptly got it stuck as well. We commenced to work with an axe until we were both swearing that it was the tree or us! (it was almost us). After a few hours of struggling we finally dropped that thing. When I look back on that I am shocked that we weren't killed - multiple times over. It is crazy to see how much I have learned since then.

 

[rarefish383]

Walter, I know what you mean when the center of a tree is gone. My brother in laws neighbor saw me taking down trees for my BIL. They were all up over the house and we roped every thing down, no problem. The neighbor comes over and compliments me on the job and says he'd like a price to put a bunch of big Oaks and Poplars on the ground, no clean up for me. He says if I want to throw them that's fine. I climbed one and limbed it out to make a hole to throw the rest. The last tree was a big Poplar, straight as an arrow, and I had a 5/8 tag line set at about 90 ft. We had the tag line to a 3/4 ton 4X4 and 2 half inch tag lines tied off to other big trees. After I notched it I put a little more pressure on the line. The top started to bow a little in the right dirrection. As I made my back cut the thing started to settle back and pinch on me. The tree was about 15 ft from the house, a little rambler. If it went back it would have cut that house in half and the first limb would have been 30 ft in the front yard. We put a little more tension on it and it went over perfect. The cut was about mid chest high. Later when I cut a couple blocks off the stump about a foot below my knotch the tree was hollow and the hollow was so big at the base there was only about 6 inches of wood left all the way around. I don't remember why I made the first cut so high, but if I had of been in that hollow I might have messed up big time. I will never throw a big tree close to a house again. If the customer doesn't want to pay to limb it out, they can get some one else, Joe.

 

[grizzly2]

A while back I was elavating and taking a couple leads off a big Swamp Willow. These are tall clump trees, not the common Wheeping Willow. The cluster I was working on had about 10 trunks and I was tied into the tallest one. One lead I was removing was going over the fence of a horse farm next door. There was a parralell lead about 3 ft over the one I was taking off. So, I threw my safety over the top lead and started walking out on the lower one. At one point I came to an upright on the top lead so I had to unsnap my safety and move it around the upright. At the same point the bottom lead went kinda verticle with a branch about the size of my wrist sticking out. Knowing how brittle willow is I had my foot wedged into the crotch of the branch and trunck as tight as I could get it. Just as I reached back over the upper lead to resnap my safety, POW, the branch snapped off. My left arm was over the top lead and as I flew back ripped all of the skin off that arm. I grabbed for the upper trunk with my right arm taking all of the skin off that one. I swung about 20 feet back into the main trunk I was tied in on, spinning around to get my feet up to cushion the impact. When I got home I had no skin on both arms and the whole top half of my torso was a giant bruise.

We used to say in any accident there is a factor of 3. Meaning there are 3 points of human error to let the accident take place. If I analize that misshap I can find at least 3 points of error. Let me know what you think, then I'll post the errors I found, Joe.

Alright, nobody answered you in where the 3 errors may have been, so let me give it a go:

1. Use another lanyard, loop runner, or the tail of your climbing line and tie in on the other side of that limb to always maintain at least two points of attachment. That would have helped maintain your weight better distribution.
2. I typically 'toss' or 'flip' the anchor end of my lanyard around what I'm tying in to, this helps prevent shifting my weight and then you would have just fallen sideways, without the loss of skin.
3. I'm not sure what the third answer would be, but, me personally, I think my first answer should have solved the problem.

 

[rarefish383]

Grizz, It's been a while since I posted this thread and I kinda forget exactly what the tree points of failure were that I had in mind. But, just looking at how I explained it I can still find 3 things.

1. Like you said, using a second safety or the tail of my rope for a second tie in.

2. Since the whole bottom lead was coming off I could have put my hooks on and I would never had to step on that small limb.

3. I should have never stepped on that small limb!!!

I could have had my buddy belay me with the tail of my rope also. I thought that the shear strenght of the limb would hold me. It was a good 2 1/2 to 3 Inches in diameter. When that sucker popped it sounded like a shot gun go off.

Thanks for taking the time to see what I did wrong, Joe.