Look out below

[GITRGUY]

After reading Bob Skurka's Hawthorn tree incident I thought I would share what happened to me earlier this week. I have been cutting some trees and pulling stumps to add on to my garage. (for the tractor of course!) Behind the house into the woods I started a brush and stump pile. Not far into the woods but out of general sight. For several weeks as I have had the chance to work at it I have been dumping stuff there. I have a large pile to one side of a tree and a small pile tucked in between that tree and some smaller ones. We have white birch trees here which are beautiful but can often grow tall and thin then die but stay standing for a long time. Due to surrounding foliage I didn't realize that the tree and the middle of my piles was one of the above mentioned. I dumped a stump and pushed back the pile some. (cause thats just kinda fun!) When backing up and looking backward I felt a bump and turned back to see that the loader had bumped aginst the tree. No big deal but then I heard tree branches moving above me and glanced up just in time to get hit. The top 6-7' of the tree fell off and as if my red hat were a target it came staight for me. A couple of fortunate things happened. One, it came in front of me not directly on the head. Two, it being dead was somewhat lighter and busted up upon contacting me. I got a nice shiner on one eye as it glanced my head, initially thought a broken hand but it is just banged up swollen and sore and my left shoulder has a nice abrasion. I am thankful that it was not worse mostly for my wifes sake. Not that I am a great prize but she does like me and would not have enjoyed finding me dead.
I don't really work in the woods on the whole but it has made me think about ways to protect from such things. Also it bent the spokes of the steering wheel so it spins in an unbalanced manner. No other damage.
Neal

 

[RedRocker]

I did one of these to prevent that kinda thing. Will add an aluminum cover in the near future.

 

[Bob_Skurka]

Looks like this summer is a bad summer for working in the woods!

I certainly sounds like you took a harder hit than I did, my injury was bloody but turned out to be minor. Although it could have been bad, I'm glad it wasn't! Kinda funny how we buy these expensive power toys, we hop on them and they let us relax and unwind from a hard day at work, and then something happens and really smacks us into reality that these are not toys, they are tools, and they can be pretty dangerous tool when we let our guard down.

Glad to see all your injuries are going to heal!


Red Rocker,
When you put that aluminum top on your FOPS, remember it will reflect engine noise back at you and magnify the volume. Put some sort of sound deadening material on the underside of your roof. Also, one of the folks on TBN cut a "moonroof" into his canopy at the front edge so he could see OVER his bucket when it is in the fully upright position. He inserted a heavy plexiglas panel for protection. Just a thought.

 

[GITRGUY]

I did one of these to prevent that kind of thing. <font color="blue"> </font>

I looked at your photos a while back and was actually thinking of you while blindly seeking my severely mangled glasses and wondering if my hand was broken!