Rescue scenario.

cory

cory

Tree House enthusiast
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dstimber said:
View attachment 69660
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Denver's pic of what a lil juice can do to a truck is vivid.

I have a large sycamore (3'x70') growing in a 4' wide spot between a fence and driveway and up through service lines to 2 houses and a bit close to street wires to remove today. It will be a pita no doubt. No crane access unfortunately. 95% of it will have to be roped down.

I was lying in bed thinking what if a limb caught one of the service wires and tore it off of house and it landed live on the bucket truck and caught the truck on fire. The pto is all-electric, what if it shorted preventing the operator from lowering the booms. I keep a 100' length of throw line in the basket for a situation where the booms are up and truck dies, a climbing line could be pulled up and anchored to the basket tie in point, for self rescue.

But if the truck was electrified and no ropes could be accessed, or the basket was directly overhead of the burning truck, or the truck was burning very hot and fast, that could be a bit harsh in terms of rescue.

Just wondered what ideas you folks might have on this. Maybe I'd be SOL. But the scenario doesn't seem that far fetched.
 
Service drop for the two house drops and get the primary sleeved. Cut small and you should have put way more dough on it.
As far as rescue in the worst case you might be SOL kinda sounds like out of the frying pan into the fire.
 
Eventually, the fire would cause the boom to drop, I would think. Might be the shits for a while in the bucket though!

Throw you any rope, from anywhere? Slide down the boom? Fight the fire?

I would put water on the fire, myself.
 
If the truck were empty I would let it burn.

However, in a man were in the bucket, I would try. We fight fire all the time in houses that are still hot, the power company is a ways out yet.

If he hit the mains, it would be a different story. Not really and electrical fire. Sorta, but what would be burning would be oil, grease, fuel rubber and plastic.

Very few of those things react well with water either, but might give you some time to get the wires off or let the lazy, overpaid firemen show up.
 
I agree with page, bail, take your chances, and let the truck burn. Sterling makes a "Rapid Intervention Team" (RIT) line that was designed for fire-service rescue crews. Might keep 75' of that and hitch hiker in a bag?

Scary scenario.
 
I did a million crane jobs with this fellow. He died a few years back when he got his boom energized.

RIP Randy...
 

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I wasn't there, but yes. For some reason when he jumped off the truck, he touched it when he hit the ground. I don't know why he touched the truck, but he did and that was it.
 
cory said:
But if the truck was electrified and no ropes could be accessed, or the basket was directly overhead of the burning truck, or the truck was burning very hot and fast, that could be a bit harsh in terms of rescue. Just wondered what ideas you folks might have on this. Maybe I'd be SOL. But the scenario doesn't seem that far fetched.
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Something to ponder and not far fetched Cory, it happened with a power company bucket but I don't remember which outfit off the top of my head. We were shown the results in a safety meeting. I've been around a quite a few electrical fires/flashes that set the grass, woods, pole or a private vehicle on fire but thankfully none resulted in bucket truck fires. It's strange, but we never had a set plan for bucket evac. We carried a 1/2" hand line but no descending device, not even a carabiner.
 
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Interesting responses, thank you. Sorry about your bro, MB.

I got the tree done without incident, cut small, it was a pita. But imma ponder more on it. I know the guy who runs the local Lewis Tree crews, I'll ask him if they plan for such possibilities.
 
If you have to bail from the bucket, even if the truck is burning, that's relatively simple and easy to plan and prepare for. If you have to bail from the bucket and you are directly over a truck on fire and/or energized...that's a different animal.
 
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  • #16
Whenever possible, the basket is not over the truck.

One problem is there is no room in the basket to carry/store rope to rappel from, it needs to be pulled up from the ground.
 
I believe there's room for 100 feet of 3/8 inch emergency lifeline and a rappel 8 in or on every bucket/platform/basket I've ever worked in or seen.
 
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  • #18
Then that leaves no room for the various bare minimum of tools needed up there for the work. But regardless of that, 3/8" of what rope? And if one is wearing a full body harness with rear attachment point, where to tie oneself into, a bowline on a bight?
 
Cory, keep your throw line on the bucket like always and move a 'rescue bag' of line, harness, descender, what not off of the truck to a safe zone where it could be retrieved quickly and sent up to the bucket if needed.
 
I don't think anyone is going to want something mounted on the boom or outside of the bucket. Because sooner or later it's gonna get caught up or mangled.
 
flushcut said:
Service drop for the two house drops and get the primary sleeved. Cut small and you should have put way more dough on it.
As far as rescue in the worst case you might be SOL kinda sounds like out of the frying pan into the fire.
Click to expand...

Great post, great advice about how to deal with the electrified lines. Safety first, the neighbors will have to deal with the loss of power for a day. Better than having someone possibly get killed. Maybe your customer could invite them over for a steak barbecue to somewhat make up for the inconvenience.

I also wonder about the possibility of setting a cinched climb line in the crown of the tree someplace strong and clear of the lines. If you had to bail out of the bucket, you might get banged up from the swing to the trunk, but at least you wouldn't be taking a 70 foot drop.

This project may already be a done deal, as I'm still early in the thread, but I vote with what flushcut said.

One tenth of one amp's worth of electrical current is enough to kill a person.

Tim
 
MasterBlaster said:
I wasn't there, but yes. For some reason when he jumped off the truck, he touched it when he hit the ground. I don't know why he touched the truck, but he did and that was it.
Click to expand...

Just in case it hasn't been said already, this is another argument against rapelling off of a line that is attached to the energized truck. The tendency might be to bump into or lean against the energized piece of equipment at the same time as you were touching down on the ground, which would cause the climber to become the path to ground. Better to have a line tied up somewhere that will tend to pull the climber clear of the energized piece of equipment.

Tim
 
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