Tree Accidents

[kf_tree]

i have a friend that blew a house up......they were taking down a city tree. they took the top out and dumped the stick on the front lawn and went to lunch. dumping the stick broke the gas main. when the maid arrived at the house she hit the light switch and boom!. no one was killed but the maid and a passing mail man got banged up.but the house was destroyed. the gentleman that told the story has been climbing for 30 years. he has a ton of tree horror stories

 

[FBerkel]

Two near misses

When I had about a year or two under my belt, while doing a removal, I almost put a running saw into my face. It was the first time i'd ever used a 14 inch bar; was used to a 12 inch bar. I put the tip onto a branch I wasn't cutting, and it kicked back toward my head, dead center on my face. The brim of my hardhat is all that stood between me and a major cosmetic surgery. Two lessons from that one: 1) Wear a hardhat with a brim or face shield (I know the Euro-looking helmets are all the rage, but they don't protect the face unless they have a shield). 2) Know your saw before you take it up a tree.

My other near miss involved my saw getting stuck in the kerf while chunking down silver maple logs. I had been throwing them well clear of a gas meter, but this one pendulumed down, due to the lanyard, then broke free of the saw, and just missed the gas line, with a saw running just a few feet away. I had visions of the type of tree inferno described in the BBC article above.

I think this is a very worthwhile thread; have read the accidents in mountaineering journal, and it embodies an appropriate level a seriousness about a dangerous endeavor. Tree worker's attitudes should be no different.

 

[geofore]

Accidents

I get a call after the accident, The homeowner put a ladder up to get a low hanging branch and up he goes with his pruning saw about 17' off the ground is the branch and he is reaching up to cut it. He gets about 3/4 of the way through the limb when it cracks and swings back sweeping the ladder out from under him. HE HIT THE GROUND AND HIS ELBOW WAS BROKEN AND HIS ARM IN THREE PLACES. Then I get the call to remove the tree. If he had just tied off it would have saved 18 months of therapy a ladder and a few thousand in medical expenses. I've had more than a few of these calls over the years. You can break your neck falling only nine feet so the next time they ask why you put on all that sissy equip to do a low branch I give them a few phone numbers to call and ask why tie off for such a low branch.

One of the guys I grew up with cut trees up until this episode. He used his four wheel drive PU to pull trees over for years. He would tie a steel cable to the top and cut the bottom. Well he wanted to get this black cherry tree down but it had rained the night before. Instead of waiting for the ground to dry he thought his four wheel drive had plenty of traction to make up for the wet ground. He cut the tree and signaled his man to move the truck as the truck revs up the tires spin and the tree pulls it over as the tree takes off backwards, pulling down the electric lines on it's way down. The tree being on a hillside and the cable a little short the truck got pulled over the bank and ended up in the street upside down. That was the last time he worked cutting trees. No one was hurt but the truck and the power company had to come out because he knocked out the power for about a mile up the road. Had he waited for the lawn to dry or set a rope to hold the tree from going backwards just in case what happened next happened next and it did. To much of a hurry to get the tree down to set a safety rope just in case.

You don't have to be a pro to get in trouble, just don't pay attention once and it will happen pro or not.

Ask Andy Weylan, cutting fire wood without any safety equipment on he tipped his saw, a 14" saw, into a log and it came back at him so fast it went up through the bottom of his chin, cut his jaw in two and knocked out a couple of teeth. You don't cut with the tip even if it says low kickback on the package.

 

[John Paul Sanborn]

A distant relative of mine all but cut off his shoulder in a kickback accident while pulping a few decades ago. That side of his body never worked right again.

 

[Stumper]

Many years ago I got a call from my dad to help him with the removal of 2 large cottonwoods. I was functioning as the ground man while dad climbed. My father was a much better climber than I am but he has never used a lanyard -just his climbing line with friction hitch. On this particular day he broke a rule-he rigged his suspension rope on a secondary branch coming off the top of a main limb rather than on the main limb(because it positioned him better for the cut). The branch he rigged on was 4" in diameter and was sufficient to hold him until......He cut loose a large limb that overhung the house. It swung back on the bullrope as planned but as it did so it swept across the top of that 4" limb he was tied around and broke it off flush with the main branch turning his rope loose. Dad fell backward with a running chainsaw seventeen feet from the ground. He got rid of the saw and snapped his legs down/under him before he hit. He didn't manage to get his knees bent however. I secured the 1200 lbs or so of limb that was hanging over him, shut off the still running saw and found his glasses for him while awaiting the paramedics. He wound up with a compression fracture of the 5th? lumbar vertebrae. Two surgeries and several months later he left the hospital as what is known as a "walking paraplegic". (I.e. He can walk but the docters don't know why.)

Using a lanyard for positioning makes sense. Always tying off on the main leader is the right way to do it. Most of us have fudged and gotten away with it but it only takes one occassion to change your life forever.

A year ago, a tree surgeon was killed here in Canon City, Co when his 30 year old bucket truck's boom broke. ( I know that the maintence/rebuild requirements of the manufacturors seem like overkill but the equipment does wear out!)
A couple of months later another local guy fell out of the tree with a limb and landed on his head( he only had a concussion and minor internal injuries!) I got details secondhand so I really don't know how it happened.-The pro told me he fell but didn't share the details.( The secondhand story was he cut the limb he was tied to.)
BE CAREFUL!!!!!

 

[Nickrosis]

My only, fortunately, experience with an accident was one of my first days climbing. We were in spruce trees that had been heavily shaded on one side and developed dead branches as a result. Well, after reviewing my knots and sending me on my way up the tree, he began to climb his spruce.

I was talking to him casually when I heard a thud and heard him say, "I think I broke my back." Smiling, I wondered what in the world he was talking about. After turning around and seeing he was no longer in the tree, I stopped smiling! My mentor was lying on the ground, flat on his back.

Apparently, the branch he had tied onto broke - he was not around the trunk (similar to Stumper's dad). Had he been using a cambium saver and tied around the main trunk, this probably never would have happened.

He acted as if he could walk it off, but it was too serious, and he went to the hospital for it. Now, he's climbing just fine, but he wouldn't be if he landed in anything other than soft spruce needles.

Nickrosis

Wisconsinites: Shh, if you know about this.

 

[Rob Murphy]

We were talking about acidents today.
1) guy fell rencently because of branch failure didnt fall far (2m) threw his arm out and shattered his forearm.
2)guy stepped out of bucket not secured fell head first (5m) busted his chest.
3)Guy descened out of bucket on rope (15m) to go down feet first, attempted reverse foot lock, about half way hands were burning too much had to let go landed on feet. Damaged unknown.

one the subject of descending feet first does anyone know how the military does it , as in 'Black Hawk Down' dropping from choppers. do they use fall arrest/mechanical devices or not anyone know?

 

[TREETX]

There is no substitute for a healthy sense of self-preservation. Eager to impress my fellow employees on my first day of work in Germany, I scaled a beech, set my climbing line and went out to start limbwalking. The one thing I forgot was to dress my Blakes hitch. Suddenly the ground was coming at me very fast and the sound of screaming school girls filled the air though none were around. Life slowed down and I can remember thinking, "This is going to suck". Weighing rope burn vs broken legs, I latched on. I managed to stop before I hit the ground but the rope burn was not just blistering but bleeding as well. It was 2 weeks until I could climb again. I was too complacent, trying to impress collegues, and not focusing on the task. A lesson was learned.

 

[John Paul Sanborn]

Fast rope descent from a helo is a hasty rappel on a 2(?) in rope. Wrap around one leg, break between feet and hold on with gloved hands.

Takes a little getting used to, especialy with a combat load.

 

[Newfie]

helo quick rope,

Sort of a controlled fall, without a broken leg on the landing! It wouldn't be any fun without the combat load to make sure those gloves get nice and hot!

 

[Stumper]

Somebody with real experience can correct me but I think that military personell use an earless 8 descender for descents on 7/16 threestrand climbing line.

 

[Jumper]

Suicide?????

There was a case just east of here last winter where I woman alledgedly committed suicide by feeding herself through a rented chipper. I do not know whether to believe the suicide part (little bitty parts of dead women with no witnesses tell no tales) but that must have been grusome regardless of the reason why.

 

[Kevin]

I remember a story from the TV where a guy ran a woman through a chipper from a bridge and chipped her into the river down below.
I don`t know why, I guess she made him mad.

 

[Jumper]

Rapelling re Black Hawk Down

In my experience in rapelling from a Twin Huey, all we used was a Swiss Seat and a 5000 lb rated Stubai carabiner. You arrest your downward descent by your right hand. For training purposes, in the event you lose control there is a ground man safety to pull on the lines to stop you by friction. My mind is foggy-this was 1986. From personal experience, it is very important to belay smartly the first four or five feet to clear the skid on the chopper, otherwise your face or in my case left fist will smash into the skid. Fortunately this happened in dry run training off the tower.

My climbing experience has been limited....but as I mentioned earlier I have a very healthy respect for heights after compressing the two lowest vertibrae and snapping my radial bone in half in 1999 in Zagreb Croatia-bad jump, things just happened and it was not really my fault.

Someone earlier here mentioned the value of hardhats-I really got beaned on the head last winter pulling snagged branches out of a large sugar maple that my boss was pruning-do not really know where it came from-he did not drop it- but it sent me flying. At the very least I would have had a very bad headache.

 

[FBerkel]

One second hand from back home:

Guy was removing a tree from a bucket, not tied in. Large log hits the boom, bends it down, and it rebounds back up, tossed him out like a catapult, and he fell to his death.

 

[Kevin]

Spring poles will get you real good too if you`re standing on the wrong side.
It`s always best to make a series of small cuts to relieve the tension.
These things will take the sleep out of your eyes real fast.

 

[kf_tree]

kevin it helps if you freeze the body first and use a 20 in chipper. it chips better that way and less clean up. or so i was told.

 

[Bradley]

Last year I responded to a "man stuck in a tree" call with my rescue squad. When we arrived I found a climber about 40' up a pine with about a 900-1000lb top hung in his lanyard. No climbing line, just a flat polestrap. This was his last pine to cut in a yard, had already taken down about 6. The tree forked and he'd bombed down the first stem of the fork. I don't know how it happened, as there was a pull line in the top, but when he cut the second stem, it came straight down in between him and the trunk and then twisted in his lanyard pulling him into the tree with all that weight hanging on him. He was not happy. It was hard listening to him scream at me to "cut the strap." He had been up there for at least 20 minutes, so I had to worry about compartment syndrome as well as him falling if I did cut the strap. I secured him to the tree with a choker and fashioned a chest strap and hasty seat harness to him because I didn't trust lowering him on his saddle because of the weight it had sustained. The whole time I was working off a ladder truck. Thank God it was in the front yard where we had access. I cut about 3/4 of the top off to lighten the load. I got out my knife to cut the strap and when I touched it with my blade it blew apart completely and the remaining wood fell to the ground. At this point he passed out and we lowered him to the ground with a standard lower and belay line. Had a few broken ribs and serious internal bruising, but recovered OK. If this had been in an area with no ladder truck access I don't know how we'd have gotten him down, as I have no tree gear on the squad. Time to get creative I guess.

 

[kf_tree]

sounds like you did a fine job on that rescue. congats on your skill and effort.
i once saw a similar thing but on a much smaller scale. the climber just stepped up into a crab apple and went to dump it. he just went to back cut it over and the tree slit as it tore over. the saw was bound in the cut and he was pinned to the tree. i was able to reach up with a 32 in bar and cut the wood free to release the preasure on his belt. he was fine, no harm no foul but we both learned something that day.

 

[tree jockey]

Tim W. a thought to ponder

An "old forest" climber once told me,
"There are old climbers
There are bold climbers but...
There are no old-bold climbers " !