Looking back.....

[murphy4trees]

Close calls will definitely get your attention.... And really the time to debrief and work at understanding what happened is when ANYTHING UNEXPECTED happens.. It doesn't matter if it was a close call or damage was done or not.. if something happened that you didn't expect, then you have the opportunity to figure out why and learn from it.. I had a tree go 45º to the intended lay once. I shut the whole job down and went home for the camera.. Took 214 photos of the stump and would not think about anything else until I figured out what happened... turns out the hinge was an inch or two longer than the bar, and I had cut a significant bypass dutchman in the tip end of the topcut of the face... when I inspected the face before starting the backcut, there was a bunch of sawdust laying in the bypass kerf, making it look like a clean notch...Turned out to be a valuable lesson... well worth the time and energy needed to tease out that understanding...

 

[woodworkingboy]

I tried to knock down a conifer that was hung up completely horizontal perpendicular and fairly high off the ground to my position, where I was wanting to flop another conifer down on it to have both go. I cut it and it teetered over the horizontal one, a perfect teeter totter, and then slid back right at me. Working on a steep incline I slipped trying to get away. Laying on my back, i watched it come back. I could have been it's target, but it missed by a few feet. God that was a moment of scary, I still cringe thinking about. One of those things, i guess someone could have warned me, but it never occurred that it might happen. I don't blame myself too much, but it wasn't like I weighed all of the possibilities.

 

[cory]

Wow, I've got two highly similar variations on Jay's theme, both while logging. 1, I tried to knock down a bowed over spring pole like Jay did above, but instead of it getting crushed down by the tree I felled on it, it didn't budge, which caused the butt end of the falling tree to see-saw straight up like a catapult does. It wizzed by my chin, would have put by head into orbit if it had caught my chin, which by sheer luck, it missed.

Another time, felled a tree over a tall adjacent boulder. Of course, when the falling tree hit the boulder it shot straight back at me like a damn pool cue being stroked, eager to crush to crush and dismember. Luck alone saved me.

 

[woodworkingboy]

Too many possibilities, and especially when logging, easy to think that your position is safe, when it really isn't.

 

[Burnham]

Looking back can be quite revealing. Just don't be too hard on yourself because knowing what can and cannot be done takes time and luck. There is just no way to do tree work without putting yourself at risk so even if you make it through the years in more or less one peice, the next time up could be your last. Just the way it is.

I think I said near about the same thing in this thread. So of course, I think they are wise words .

https://www.masterblasterhome.com/showthread.php?18138-Bad-day

Stuff happens, Chris. There can often be a lesson, but not from this one, it's just the breaks, and the best you can do is wonder why but not let it get inside your head. Don't multi fork rig every single piece from here on out, you'll not make a smidge of difference once all is said and done. Use your overall experience, not the one outlier, to make judgments on how to rig.

Most of us have seen something of a similar nature, if we've been at it a while. Trees are an organic structure, and we just have to bet the averages, or we'd never get a damn thing done. It's one of the things that makes this work so challenging, so rewarding, for those of us willing to take it on. Plenty of guys can't do it for exactly this reason.

Really, REALLY glad no harm came to you or your personnel, or equipment, or the HO property. A good day, I say.

 

[Grendel]

well said Burnham.

 

[Burnham]

Thank you, sir. I'm just an old climber with the luck of a blind pig...every once in a while I find an acorn .