trees and rops

virgil · Jul 14, 2004

In the last 10 days I have had two of my coustomers get hurt by catching tree limbs with the rops and pulling the limb down on them. No one was hurt bad, just some stitches, brusses and a well learned lesson. Both times the operator was in a somewhat "tight" spot, and had all their attention focused to the ground and other obsticles around them. (forgot to look up!)
Carefull out there guys and gals. I need all the coustomers I can get. virg

slowrev · Jul 14, 2004

I have found a hard hat and eye protection to be essiential when working on a tractor around trees with low branches. Always wear eye protection ( blind without glasses) and keep a hard hat hanging on the back of my seat.
Mufflers can be dangerous about limbs too.

Junkman · Jul 14, 2004

I whacked a tree limb when I first got my tractor and broke it off. I then cut off every limb that the tractor couldn't make it under before I got whacked myself by a limb. A afternoon with the chain saw and tractor will save many a bad night nursing a bruise or worse because of a low hanging limb...

mahlers · Jul 14, 2004

That's one of the nice things about having a cab /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif It's nice to be out there in a safe enclosed environment when things are falling out of trees all around me (and hornets and skunks are getting PO'd at me for bothering them).

The wife won't let me out of the house without wearing a full set of body armor these days - it seems that anything and everything possible will land on my head. I was innocently pulling some ivy out of a pine tree one day a couple of years ago and a 25 foot long dead branch from about 40 feet up in the tree decided to come down. It speared me right in the middle of my head - and I wasn't wearing a hard hat. That thing fractured my skull, ripped off the entire backside of my scalp, and got me some permanent metal in my head. The folks in the hospital were stunned that I got myself down to the emergency room without losing consciousness and stood there in line for a half hour waiting to get some attention while holding a towel on my head.

Henro · Jul 14, 2004

I know it's not for everyone, but this is what I did to prevent that...

But really I made this light-duty FOPS more so to erase the worry I had about standing dead trees dropping something on my head...or even more than that, the fear I had of tipping the tractor and having a tree standing there on my side of the rops...squishing me between the tree and the seat...