Tragedy in Wisconsin

[Lorra]

That's not a very good way to make friends here.... Lorra.
Not a very smart and/or accurate statement you made there, if you've read much at all. (100 percent?!)
I could go on about how equipment fails, cops don't get shot at every day, and firefighters don't fight fires every day.... unlike tree workers.
I'm sure you would have a better appreciation, respect and understanding if your occupation was that of a person in the tree service industry.
Do it.... THEN bragg about it.
Maybe one day we will all be as perfect as you, until then we will strive harder for such perfection.

My take on all this is partly based on the responses I've seen in this forum, over time, whenever someone reports an accident, whether the worker died or was seriously, or even minorly injured. The backlash is incredible. The victim gets called every name in the book. I've read references to the gene pool. All sorts of derogatory remarks in reference to a worker who makes a poor decision, and ends up in a near-death circumstance. The one that immediately comes to mind was the newspaper article that someone posted, of a tree worker who was hanging for two hours. There was a photo of him hanging, and his ladder was out of reach. The backlash was never-ending. Yes, equipment fails and the manufacturer is at fault. But every tree-fall incident I've read, or incident in which someone on the ground gets hit by falling branches, involves poor judgment--not my opinion, but the opinion of other arborists reviewing the accident, speculating about cause, improper rigging, improper knots, not wearing chaps, this and that. The word "idiot" and other similar words come up a lot. I rarely hear "law of averages" or "everything was done properly." So that's where my perspective comes from. Though cops and firefighters don't do dangerous things every day eight hours a day, I was referring to percentage of fatalities relative to time spent on the job.

 

[boo]

I side with the loved ones.
Most of us make even the common mistakes once in a while.
I guess people are going to talk, and finger point etc.
Hopefully I won't be the case where my wife or kid reads about my death....
A Widow may not take so kindly to your words or anyone finger pointing or insulting.

 

[Lorra]

I side with the loved ones.
Most of us make even the common mistakes once in a while.
I guess people are going to talk, and finger point etc.
Hopefully I won't be the case where my wife or kid reads about my death....
A Widow may not take so kindly to your words or anyone finger pointing or insulting.

I have noticed that the blaming and fingerpointing, the hard comments, are almost always directed at the workers who survive, of course, what could have been a lot worse. It's easy, then, to get tough on them as far as what is said about them, because we all know that they have that second chance, and assumingly they have learned their lesson. Even driving to work downtown every day is extremely hazardous, based on statistics. How often do we pass by a big car accident? I see them all the time. In fact, what's really common out here is there is always a hiker who somehow, falls down a steep slope and dies. One every three or four weeks, it seems. I just don't know how this can happen, and I hike all the time in the backcountry. Well, enough of my rambling. I respect your jobs and am still considering getting into it to some extent.

 

[Oly's Stump]

I would like to add more to my earlier post and also reply to some of the replies since. The chipper that was involved was not a rental chipper but owned by another local tree service that was sub-contracted to chip Jeremiah's (victim's) brush. I have first hand knowledge of this information because I knew the victim and the owner of the chipper. The chipper was a 2002 Morbark Tornado 15" chipper and not a hurricane as I earlier reported. The victim was just starting out his business and was in his second season. He did not own a chipper or stump grinder and sub-contracted out for these services. I ground all his stumps. Jeremiah has five years tree experience and learned his climbing from working with other tree firms. As for the the reverse bar working or not I can only say that the owner of the chipper said that it was working earlier that day and one of his employee's (nephew to the victim) said it had been working moments prior to the incident. OSHA has the chipper impounded as of this time for their investigation. The five workers at the incident did not shut down the motor, did not pull the clutch lever, nor did anyone attempt to reverse the wheels by hand with the linkage. The reverse bar did not work and it was reported that the workers attempted to pull the victim out of the chipper without success. I was told that they paniced. I had personally advised the victim on prior occasions about using his foot as a push stick and also unsafe tying in while climbing. Jeremiah made a big mistake that cost him is life and why he did not listen to other suggestions regarding safety still amazes me.
I can also comment on the replies involving police officer dangers and killings. I am presently a detective with the Kenosha WI police Dept with nearly 30 years law enforcement with my retirement 4 months away to give me more time in the tree business. I have know officers that were killed just because they wear the uniform or what they represent. Believe me if someone wanted to kill any police officer it would not be difficult. You can be easily shot during a traffic stop, responding to a call, getting out of your car to get a cop of joe at the cafe or just about anywhere or anytime. Cops have been killed because what they represent and not who they were. Cops do make mistakes and are killed because of it just like any other job I guess.

 

[John Paul Sanborn]

I have noticed that the blaming and fingerpointing, the hard comments, are almost always directed at the workers who survive,

The whyfor of my stick post at the top of the forum, can you imagine that it's actually toned down?!?

I'll readilly agree with you Lorra, most of my near misses, all of those that I've posted, are from me being stupid or inatentive to my work. Most are Friday afternoon F-ups.

Most other industry problems are the same, repetative tasks where a step was eliminated.

Here it's he did not flip in while re-tieing, carpentry is he did not use a push stick on the tablesaw.

It took me years to get the doublecheck habit ingrained. Then there is allways the time where it slipps and I think how lucky I got.

Brian F. would allways say it usually takes 2 mistakes to to screw up big in this industry. In my experiance it's usually true, we have enough reducnacy built in.

Climbing on the feed tray, holding on to the feed control bar and pushing with your foot?

I've often thought, lately, that maybe that's what caused the malfunction that the crew found. He held on so tight that it bent the bar.

 

[John Paul Sanborn]

Lorra's not 100% right. But she's not 100% wrong, either.

Off the top of my head I can think of 2 deaths that were not due to pure stupidity.

One was Dr. Pete (Last Name???) out east, a Dr. at Renssellier PTI who became fascinated with the dynamics of tree work. He had a lightning struck pine fail while rigging it out. The found mention of the defect in his notes and he actually went higher to rig smaller. Did not help.

A few days later an arborist in GA goes to look at a tree in a ladies back yard. It had just stormed and the soil was saturated. Clear blue sky, light wind.. the tree fell over on him with the lady watching

 

[BlueRidgeMark]

I side with the loved ones.
Most of us make even the common mistakes once in a while.
I guess people are going to talk, and finger point etc.
Hopefully I won't be the case where my wife or kid reads about my death....
A Widow may not take so kindly to your words or anyone finger pointing or insulting.

I rather doubt they are on this forum reading about it. The purpose of discussing it here is to help those who are still alive to stay that way, by helping all of us learn to avoid the kind of mistakes that get people killed.


Pretending that all is well helps NOBODY. If somebody reads about this and the only thing they see is, "Well, what a tragedy! Very sad. Couldn't be helped, of course. Nobody is to blame." they won't learn anything that might save their life. On the other hand, if they see a lot of people talking about how avoidable it was, they just might remember that the next time they are tempted to climb on a running chipper.


In other words, calling it for what it is might save a life, and AVOID having more widows and orphans to feel sorry for. Somehow I don't understand how that is not "siding with the loved ones".

I rather suspect if they could choose to have someone go back and tell THEIR loved one that he's being stupid, in time to save his life, they'd do it now and worry about his hurt feelings later.

I've got a good friend who killed her husband and son by tailgating. I've never told her that, and I never will. It would serve no purpose.

But I damn sure tell OTHER people, hoping that it might save someone else's life. It's too late for that man and his son, but it's not too late for others to learn from that needless death and suffering.

 

[boo]

I rather doubt they are on this forum reading about it. The purpose of discussing it here is to help those who are still alive to stay that way, by helping all of us learn to avoid the kind of mistakes that get people killed.


Pretending that all is well helps NOBODY. If somebody reads about this and the only thing they see is, "Well, what a tragedy! Very sad. Couldn't be helped, of course. Nobody is to blame." they won't learn anything that might save their life. On the other hand, if they see a lot of people talking about how avoidable it was, they just might remember that the next time they are tempted to climb on a running chipper.


In other words, calling it for what it is might save a life, and AVOID having more widows and orphans to feel sorry for. Somehow I don't understand how that is not "siding with the loved ones".

I rather suspect if they could choose to have someone go back and tell THEIR loved one that he's being stupid, in time to save his life, they'd do it now and worry about his hurt feelings later.

I've got a good friend who killed her husband and son by tailgating. I've never told her that, and I never will. It would serve no purpose.

But I damn sure tell OTHER people, hoping that it might save someone else's life. It's too late for that man and his son, but it's not too late for others to learn from that needless death and suffering.

where do you get pretending all is well?
how do know his family does'nt read here?
what makes you think he did'nt know better?
It's all in the approach... who's going to listen to some ego motivated, bull headed, 20 something, know it all?
I've found that in those cases, the more they talk, the dumber they seem.
those are normally the ones that get hurt or killed.

 

[BlueRidgeMark]

John I have often thought that the feed bars on our chippers work just the opposite of how they should.

When the feed bar is pulled the feed wheels should reverse.....and when pushed the feed wheels should feed the machine.

A person who gets a foot caught in a feed roller or hung up in a limb is going to have a hard if not impossible time 'pushing' on the feed bar to stop feeding. More likely is a death grip on the feed bar in a futile attempt at keeping from being pulled in...... At feed rates of over 100 feet per minute there is not much time to think once caught.

Somebody, 'splain that to me, will you? I don't know how these are set up, but I'm picturing a bar that is in the back of the feed chute.

If that's where it is, then pushing it toward the machine, i.e., in the same direction that limbs go into the chute, should STOP the machine. So, if someone is pulled in and grabs the bar, the pull of the machine pulls him AND the bar in the STOP direction. No thinking required. You just do the instinctive thing - grab and hold on for dear life. Someone running up to help simply has to crash into the bar to stop things - they don't have to really think, or reverse direction.

Also, such an arrangement would stop the machine unintentionally when branches get dragged into it. I'm sure that would lead to the bar being disabled, after just a few of those occurrences!


But if it works the OTHER way, it's counter-instinctive and much less likely to be engaged successfully in an emergency.

So, how DOES it work?

 

[BlueRidgeMark]

Hey, no problem Dan. If you aren't good at explaining things, I understand.

 

[boo]

John I have often thought that the feed bars on our chippers work just the opposite of how they should.

When the feed bar is pulled the feed wheels should reverse.....and when pushed the feed wheels should feed the machine.

A person who gets a foot caught in a feed roller or hung up in a limb is going to have a hard if not impossible time 'pushing' on the feed bar to stop feeding. More likely is a death grip on the feed bar in a futile attempt at keeping from being pulled in...... At feed rates of over 100 feet per minute there is not much time to think once caught.

agreed.
similar to operating a wood splitter, when a finger gets pinched. i.e. in a prior split, that is still attached to the log.(split peices should not be left on log while plitting)
natural action is to pull down harder on lever to pull the other, pinched hand free. similar to holding on to direction control bar while feeding.
a problem with your chipper feed direction is when a forked, or curved limb feeds in, could hit against the direction control bar, wedging tight.

 

[TackleTree]

I pray for his family and friends. Such a tradgedy. Please respect the trade of tree work, and all its big machines. Be safe, be careful, and be home at night.