Tree cutting accident

[Fuddyduddy1952]

This is how I weed eat except with a full face respirator.

 

[2manyrocks]

My forestry helmet becomes uncomfortable after 4-5 hours. Time for me to quit by then. Safety glasses do not offer the same face protection.

Unfortunate that this situation happened. Could just as easily have happened to anyone. It really doesn't take that much weight falling from a tree to cause a severe head injury.

 

[WinterDeere]

My forestry helmet becomes uncomfortable after 4-5 hours. Time for me to quit by then. Safety glasses do not offer the same face protection.

I only don my forestry helmet for the 2 or 3 minutes it takes to actually drop a tree. The rest of the time, it’s baseball cap and safety glasses.

I don’t need a full helmet when I’m bucking logs or limbing a tree on the ground.

 

[RandyT]

My forestry helmet becomes uncomfortable after 4-5 hours. Time for me to quit by then. Safety glasses do not offer the same face protection.

Unfortunate that this situation happened. Could just as easily have happened to anyone. It really doesn't take that much weight falling from a tree to cause a severe head injury.

60-100 pounds falling 20-30 feet from above will cause a world of hurt even wearing a helmet.

 

[2manyrocks]

I have forgotten the actual numbers, but my iffy recollection is it only takes something like 7-15lbs falling 10-20 feet to cause a severe head injury.

 

[Rockbadchild]

we have a saying underground... you only have to worry about the small rocks, they're the only one that hurts...

 

[ruffdog]

we have a saying underground... you only have to worry about the small rocks they're the only one that hurts...

Falling doesn't hurt....it's the sudden stop that gets you....

 

[Fuddyduddy1952]

This is how I weed eat except with a full face respirator. View attachment 822899

There's a middle aged fellow who people get to do lawn work in this area. He makes this guy look like he's wearing flip-flops and briefs. It can be 98°F and he's wearing 20# of crap just to trim hedges.
People hire him because he works for $10/hr.
I tried working with him, but after an hour of his rambling about pyramids on Mars, demonic forces in his bathroom and UFOs...I had to go!

 

[MossRoad]

Just got word from his wife this morning that he past away last night about 10:30

So sorry to hear that. My condolences.

 

[Hay Dude]

Just got word from his wife this morning that he past away last night about 10:30

That’s terrible

 

[Fladogman]

Just got word from his wife this morning that he past away last night about 10:30

Very sorry to hear this, prayers for the family

 

[RandyT]

Update. Today was the funeral, and had a chance to speak to the wife and son. Saw pictures of the tree he was cutting. Tree main trunk snapped off at a angle while he was cutting the felling notch. Appears that the tree he was cutting was a dead ash about 12 inches in diameter that broke off about 15 feet in the air came down and hit him in the chest which knocked him over causing him to hit his head on another stump. So it is actually looking like even though he had a brain bleed the actually cause of death was a heart attack.

I am actually seeing emerald ash borer killed trees breaking off several feet above the ground about a year after being killed by the beetle. And we are not talking about small branches coming down, I mean trees 12-18 inches in diameter breaking in half 15-20 feet in the air on calm windless days.

 

[ArlyA]

Update. Today was the funeral, and had a chance to speak to the wife and son. Saw pictures of the tree he was cutting. Tree broke off while he was cutting the felling notch. Appears that the tree he was cutting was a dead ash about 12 inches in diameter that broke off about 15 feet in the air came down and hit him in the chest which knocked him over causing him to hit his head on another stump. So it is actually looking like even though he had a brain bleed the actually cause of death was a heart attack.

I am actually seeing emerald ash borer killed trees breaking off several feet above the ground about a year after being killed by the beetle. And we are not talking about small branches coming down, I mean trees 12-18 inches in diameter breaking in half 15-20 feet in the air on calm windless days.

Ya, those long dead, weak trees kill sawyers. When in school they talked about trying to identify them and there risk of felling them.

 

[ruffdog]

Communities that delt with EAB told others....do not wait for the trees to fully die. ANY indication of EAB means you cut the tree ASAP. Those dead Ash trees are so dangerous to work with.

 

[groundcover]

Recently had a friend in tree service that had one of his guys struck by an Ash top. They had a line in one of the leaders and when his helper put tension on it with chipper winch it broke out and broke the sawyers leg. Very experienced guy.

 

[kenmbz]

The Dead Ash I have left are either small, or huge but in the woods.
The small ones I will rope. They split at weird angles all the time and drop.
Almost got pegged while on the tractor. Whole areas of my trails are off limits until I can rope them down, from far, far away.
Even the ones that looked a bit alive would kick out branches and sometimes split.

I call the splits toothpicks as you can see the point 10-30' up where they split off in the woods.

Sad to hear about all this, why I stopped cutting them when they started dropping branches. Too late for that now.

 

[Lineman North Florida]

Having been in an industry where safety rules were written in someone's blood , I tried to follow them as habit, I still wear safety glasses everyday even though I am retired because I know I only have one pair of eyes, and while I have never wore chaps while running a chainsaw and have never so much as scratched myself after having run one for probably many hundreds of hours, but I will probably start as I am getting older and I work by myself and have probably been lucky through the years. I am always amazed at simple things like Lock Out Tag Out are overlooked and seem to always cost someone a life or limb. A couple of years back at a local sawmill one of the sawyers shut down the saw to work on it, didn't use LOTO and in a few minutes one of his co-workers came along and fired it up and he lost one of his hands, a $10 lock and a 50 cent Do Not Operate Tag would have prevented it from happening, being educated on these rules should be #1 priority to anyone who is in charge of an operation.

 

[ArlyA]

Communities that delt with EAB told others....do not wait for the trees to fully die. ANY indication of EAB means you cut the tree ASAP. Those dead Ash trees are so dangerous to work with.

EAB?

 

[WinterDeere]

EAB?

Emerald Ash Borer. Brought into the Great Lakes region from China, been spreading out from there the last 15 years.

Communities that delt with EAB told others....do not wait for the trees to fully die. ANY indication of EAB means you cut the tree ASAP. Those dead Ash trees are so dangerous to work with.

That's exaggerating the point a bit, but yeah... EAB-killed trees do get brittle and unpredictable with time. I've been felling them quite regularly, the last ten years. Many in the 40" - 48" DBH range, on the property where I happen to do most of my cutting.

 

[Torvy]

Emerald Ash Borer. Brought into the Great Lakes region from China, been spreading out from there the last 15 years.


That's exaggerating the point a bit, but yeah... EAB-killed trees do get brittle and unpredictable with time. I've been felling them quite regularly, the last ten years. Many in the 40" - 48" DBH range, on the property where I happen to do most of my cutting.

Why didn't they just give the elms a vaccine and put masks on them? Too soon?