Treeworker dies in CT

[SouthSoundTree]

Yeah Paul, I should have been more specific. The only thing you can do is check the tree out more throughly before you go up it. Need to have Paul thump on it with his mallet.

I might be missing an inside joke/ idea about Paul and his mallet.

Maybe peel the bark off and look underneath, especially with the lack of visible root flare, as TD points out.

I climbed very fuzzy bigleaf maple on Saturday. I pulled the moss off at least at the crotches. A danger with thick moss or ivy is definitely the possibility of undetected defects.

 

[Old Monkey]

I have imagined going over with a tree many times. I always think about jumping into the brush, away from the trunk and larger branches. Its a worst case scenario thought process. Coming down between the pavement and the trunk is not a very good scenario.

 

[stehansen]

I went up a tree that was wobbling in a pretty good wind once. I figured my weight was pretty insignificant in comparasion. I wouldn't do that now.

 

[sotc]

Did you gain weight?

 

[stehansen]

No Willie, I was already kind of fat then. Still a couple hundred pounds is not much weight in all but the smallest of trees.

 

[murphy4trees]

Listening to the Reggae music station on cable TV and the lrics are going:
We're in the middle of the makin' of the master blaster challenge"..
over and over again wierd huh?

Shame this kid died.. maybe the tree just failed from his weight, but that would be strange, especially in white oak.. I've got a suspiscion that the tree was either side loaded in rigging, or possibly they could have been using a pull line to pull the top before the hinge was properly formed.

It is extremely rare to see white oak sustaining storm damage around here... Story smells bad to me.

Dead ash would be another story.. DON'T TRUST DEAD ASH.......... Big Jon had one fall right from under him, fortunately he was tied into another nearby tree.

 

[Blinky]

The description of the tree being hollow with 'dry rot' doesn't sound right (at least that wouldn't compromise the structure much) but it's a news story, they always screw up pertinent details. Even with side loading a genuinely healthy white oak wouldn't fail in the primary structure. Something was wrong with that tree.

Any tree can fail at the root base if the roots are decayed and even a small change in balance can initiate it. It can look perfectly live and healthy and have radical decay from a few inches below grade all the way down, I know that for a fact. Agreed with white oak it's less likely but still, it can definitely happen.

Just like tree canopies decaying from the top down, roots often decay from the bottom up in a plane that spans the whole base.