My close-call story: Was bush hogging a trail for the power coop to come trench my power line in on ... Pretty tight quarters, trying to manuever the tractor making sure the hog didn't swing too much & hit anything, & just barely caught the front right tire on a little ~8" pine tree, prob ~50' tall. (was turning sharp right, so the FEL just missed the tree) No big deal slowly bumping a tree, or so I thought. Something caught my eye & when I looked up I saw this was a DEAD & brittle pine tree that was ready to fall over back towards me (I didn't immediately notice it was dead because at the bottom all the pine bark was mostly still on it). Just so happened some small, whispy branches from another tree were kinda holding it "almost" straight upright, & my bump wasn't quite enough to knock it loose ... but had I hit it any harder ... the only place for it to go, & the direciton it was leaning, was back on me :shocked:
Anyway, my lesson: I used to have the mindset that bumping a tree here & there in tight quarters wasn't a huge deal, especially with just the tires, just don't hit them so hard I gouge or damage the tree & risk killing it ... Hadn't dawned on me a dead one might only take a slight bump to come crashing down on me. Fortunately I now know, without the "hard lesson".
Now thru the woods I gotta dart my eyes all around 360 degrees ... and UP.