Accident--fatal

Al Smith

Mac Daddy
Joined
Mar 6, 2005
Messages
14,307
Location
Northern Ohio
I just got word yesterday a guy i used to work around was involved in a fatal accident while dropping a tree .Details are a tad vague

From what I gather he had a leaner and took a strain on it with a big tractor,over tensioned it ,it barber chaired and got him .Be careful out there .This guy wasn't a kid,65 years old ,must have just lost his train of thought or something .I just hate it when I have to report this stuff but if it saves someones life we all need to take heed .
 
Sorry to hear of this! Every time I do hear of these things I preach to the guys that work with me when I catch them pulling excessively on leaners or cutting through the notch. Lots of guys around here think they are pros since Katrina! Truth is they have common sense and can get it done but never have taken a class, read these forums, know safe work practices, use PPE, etc.., Thanks for sharing and prayers to the deceased friends and family
 
There's the tendency to be reluctant to ask for more information on the assumption that this implies an insensivitivity to the tragic elements. Please understand that this is not my intent (and I really hope I'm as sorry as anyone) but I'm just wondering why they put a pull on it if it was already leaning. Were they trying to pull it to a different lay? Etc. Thanks.
 
...feel jes like Jed , uncool to ask yet ... Mebbee a Head leaner that had to go to the side some. Too much pre tension on straight grains can be one of many causes to the evil barber chair. Al's territory has many I assume prob several species of Oak and Ash.
 
RIP to another tree man..
and I always think that we should try to glean any insight possibel from such tragedy. If someone can learn something that maybe saves thewir life, that is a gift from the deceased ... their sacrafice helps us live.
 
Yeah, I wonder how many people have been removing trees for at least ten years and never had a close call? Heck of a way to learn, a situation is your teacher but just as easily could have been your killer. Makes me cringe to remember.
 
I can't believe I survived...

I shoulda been killed many times over...

Hey, Butch, thanks for this post. To what, primarily, would you attribute having so many close calls? Was it a lack of anyone around with a lot of experience, and therefore you had to learn on your own by trial and error? Or is it just that there are so many variables in doing timber falling and tree removal via climbing, that it is very difficult to account for all of the things that could go wrong?

If older you could go back in time and advise younger you how to operate, do you think you'd be able to eliminate all of the close calls?

I guess the basic question is, can a much older, more experienced head account for all of the "what-ifs", and thereby keep a crew or climber safe? Or does stuff just go so sideways sometimes, that there's no way to predict it and prevent injury. Luck of the toss, your time is your time, and that is it?

Thanks in advance for any answers you choose to give. Others may feel free to chime in on this question, also.

Tim
 
Definitely older and wiser can account for the vast majority of "what ifs"... BUT there are juts some unkowns and freaky type stuff that can happen if you're out doing big trees all day everyday....
IN all my years working with Big Jon I only heard him say "that's a first" one time... me too these days. Very rare to see something unexpected. I just had a 2 times in 30+ years evernt happen on Tuesday.... It's hard to answer the question though if you are mostly self taught cause you don;t know what you might have missed along the way.. I hear Bartlett has an excellent program for training new climbers... it's a system..
 
Back
Top