Almost became a statistic myself this morning...

Buck · Dec 22, 2004

Thanks for posting dixiedrifter. You may have saved someones life.

I have such a tree that I have been contemplating taking down. Because of your post, well, I'm not going to do it until I assess it further.

Enjoy your cig.

sassafraspete · Dec 22, 2004

I had a small dead oak ...probably 12-14 inches at the base, and was cutting it and expected the fall to be routine. What I hadn't thought about was the large stout hickory limb sticking out in the fall line. The fall of the tree started out nicely, but to my surprise when it hit the stout hickory limb, the top snapped and the top was heading straight back toward the stump. Luckily, I usually map out my escape route and run like h... , which saved me in this case. I currently have a couple of dead oaks standing , but which have a number of dead limbs ...and my decision is to let mother nature bring them down...as those limbs are too dangerous to mess with. Sometimes, they are just not worth fooling with.

JimR · Dec 22, 2004

It's the dead limbs that will get you, Not the live ones. You do need to be very careful when dropping trees with dead limbs.

dixiedrifter · Dec 22, 2004

Well, had someone go into the woods and get my saw yesterday. Didn't have the heart to do it myself. They said it was tore up, I remember the saw idling and in one piece when I left.

Anyhoos, here is a pic of my arm I took last night. Amazingly, no broken bones, and it doesn't really hurt there, but I think I got some serious issues with my shoulder.

http://personalpages.tds.net/~jareds/arm.jpg

Barton · Dec 23, 2004

Thanks for posting. The more I read about this subject the more i realize how little I know.

Beenthere: I never heard the term 'barber chair' split before. Did a google and found the following site with pictures of a "split" plus a good discussion. Thanks!

click here

Bart

btolle · Dec 23, 2004

To add one more safety comment here: Be very careful when trying to push a tree down with your front end loader.

I had a dead tree I thought I could push down. I put the bucket up as far as it would go and drove slowly up against the tree. It would not fall so I started backing away. When I released the pressure on the tree it sprang back towards me and a couple of the dead branches near the top broke off and fell on me. I was probably very lucky, the tree could easily have broken and the whole thing would have fallen on me.

Fortunately I was not hurt and I used it as a good safety lesson. I will not try to push a tree down with the FEL unless it is very small and I am sure I can knock it down.

Another example of why a dead tree is more dangerous than a live one.

Bill Tolle