Dangerous things that maybe don't get talked about so much

As always cutting a proper face, then cutting it up thin enough that you're not adding force with hinge resistance.
 
According to him he was taking a ten foot top. Started to go before the back cut was even started. Pretty big guy for a climber. Around 200# from what I read. Looking at the pics it showed no signs of weakness.
 
Actually he's about 160 lbs. . Tree was 12-14" at stump height. Top was about 5" diameter. He faced it. Started on the back cut and had the groundy start pulling. As the top was starting to go he felt the tree move kinda weird and he ripped off the rest of the holding wood. I'll see if I can find the pics
 
He's got them posted on AS. Under one hell of a ride I believe. Still it's a big fear of mine since I was told about it
 
Here is what the climber had to say (not me...The Jolly Logger):

Well, I took quite the ride last week. It was about a 60' aspen with about a 10 degree lean towards the swingset and chicken coop. It looked fine, healthy canopy, no signs of decay, no red flags at all. I went up to take the top out, probably a 10-150foot top. Rigged it, notched it, and as I was making the backcut, I felt it lean, more than it should of. I crammed the saw through the hinge, braced for the rebound..... and it kept going over. My first thought was it uprooted, but as you can see, it just completely failed at the stump. Hit the swingset, broke, and ended up in the coop. I rolled right at the last instant and took the hit on my shoulder. I had surgery last friday, and am looking at 3 months of PT, with an expectation of a full recovery. All things considered, it sure could have been worse.

This has always been my biggest concern, hidden structural defect, and it came to pass. There were no external signs, and it felt fine on the way up.
 
There will never be zero risk in this work. Stuff just happens, unseen things bite your azz...you either can deal with that little bit of uncertainty and hazard, or you go into other work.

Very glad to read that the physical injuries can be overcome. The question that comes to me, as I have seen it happen...can your head get wrapped around dealing with it, after your body is ready to climb again? I wish him the very best.
 
Lucky man.. Scary stuff. Having a tree break out from under me is my worst fear in this business. I have seen too many that have just fallen over with no one in it.
 
Tree failure is a big concern but you can't let it get ahold of you or you will never get off the ground.
 
Shooting a line up high an bounce testing can probably help. Maximum load and leverage from the climbers weight.

I have a friend who broke a red alder this way that he was going to climb.
 
I've often wondered about this scenario. Say you pull test a dicey tree beside a clients house and it fails and does damage. How would or should the liability fall? Do any of you have any kind of a liability release form that you'd have a client sign or something? Honestly I've verbally told clients that I won't be on the hook for damage on something say really long dead and risky. Doubt that would mean squat though if things went south in a bad way.

I did a big rotten long dead birch once that was literally being held up by a limb from a neighbouring cedar. Looking at that birch it looked the same as hundreds of others I've done, but when I'd limbed it up to that branch and cut it free of that branch it failed near the base and clipped the corner of a shed. If it hadn't been a bucket job it would've been game over. Client was pissed and squared it away as not getting paid on the job. They were so ignorant about the whole thing I accepted those terms just to be done with them. The damage was minor.
 
SouthSoundTree- said:
Shooting a line up high an bounce testing can probably help. Maximum load and leverage from the climbers weight.

I have a friend who broke a red alder this way that he was going to climb.
Click to expand...

This is a very good practice to do! Mid summer we were on the job where I posted a pic of two different oaks growing together and had just one more tree to do. So Robbie set his line and started doing his pull test and I saw something that looked fishy. I walk over to the trunk and stood there while he was bouncing and the root plate was moving. We bailed and came back with a bucket.
 
Thanks for digging up and posting that info, Gary.
 
One of my greatest mentors went over with a tree. The thing uprooted out of nowhere. He landed on the underside with it and suffered some bad injuries.

I've said this before and made plenty of book worm tree scientist types angry when saying it but.....
A tree will screw your life up in an instant and I don't care how much you know, read, saw and studied, you might not see it coming.

Trees show us a lot of warning signs, but they hide just as many.
 
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