Rotten silver maple leader fails while I was climbing

[Mike H]

Tied into a leader buckingham ring to ring friction saver on mrs with obvious decay and critter holes of an ugly silver maple. I have gotten away with similar decaying leads and had expected to be able to load it in compression. While moving in the canopy to set a second tie in, felt the leader fail and it free fell. I was about 25 ft off the ground and it ripped me down like a slingshot.
Landed on my back on the sidewalk. Vertex helmet worked but it did cut me a little. Screamed in fear and pain and the clients came to help and called the ambulance. CT scans showed broken back, 4 broken ribs and internal bleeding in my psoas muscle. Also a tiny pneumothorax that won't need surgery
No back surgery. Just rest and rehab. Might be 2 months before back to work.
Be careful out there. This sucks

 

[Matias]

Man, that sucks a whole lot, but obviously, it could have sucked a lot more. Glad it's only R&R on the script. Hope to hear you're moving around alright soon.

 

[27RMT0N]

Wow, I'm really sorry to hear about that Mike. Not to preach here, but now rest and good recovery are your new full time job. The time off may be challenging (it always is for me when I'm down with back pain) but the more serious recovery is taken, the sooner and better health outcomes will be on the other side. Take care.

 

[ATH]

Best wishes for fast recovery.

 

[Bart_]

Spooky after just watching the Poplar Mechanic get pulled out of a tree in Moss's thread. Heal well and best wishes.

 

[Muggs]

Decaying silvers are dangerous, I've had many run-ins with bad ones. Could have been so much worse. Take the r&r seriously so you can get back out there.

 

[data farm 26]

Really sorry to hear this, Mike, I hope that you can heal up well.

 

[Brando CalPankian]

Yikes! Glad you're alive. Thank you for sharing. Make sure to monitor your healing. If something doesn't feel right (obviously you're going to hurt) and the doctors don't look in to it, get another opinion. When I broke my neck they didn't take me seriously. It has now lead to lifelong complications that could have been avoided. Scary stuff.

 

[Shadowscape]

Silver maples should all be burnt down, sprayed with Round Up, and then spat upon. Bastards!
Glad you are alive. You can sit next to me on the injured list bench.

 

[Serf Life]

Wow, would you be interested in sharing that with TCIA for their injury report in the publication? No names etc but it will reach a much larger audience. Hope you heal well and thank you for posting this

 

[Treetopflyer]

keep us posted on how you are doing, beyond the physical aspect the depression can feel real as anything with recovery ‍

 

[rico]

Here's to a full and speedy recovery..

 

[Mick Dempsey]

Silver maples are rotten bastards, especially previously topped/damaged ones.
Sorry to read of your accident.
Best wishes for the recovery.

 

[ATH]

I'm going to defend Silver maples...I've seen some spectacular individuals.

However that is very rare because most have been topped. So I save my dislike for the practice instead the tree.

Now, I'm not planting one in my yard... dropping twigs and surface roots are not so great.

 

[DSMc]

I'm with you, ATH. I like Silver maples and have seen plenty of beautiful representatives of the species. It is a tree with known issues that limit its usefulness within the urban environment. Many fine trees fit that caveat.

Very bad day for you, Mike! Hope you heal well and as fast as possible. Big thanks for taking the time to post about this.

 

[southsoundtree]

Best wishes for a full recovery!

 

[RogerM]

The scariest thing I read was... "I have gotten away with this before" Damnit man, me too. Just wonder how close a lot of us were to being in your situation. Such a scary thing to happen. Wish you a speedy recovery. Now for some levity...
worse thing to happen to me in a silver maple was this time 2 of us were up in one and I lanyarded around a squirrels nest, I thought was abandoned, pulled my primary tie in to retie somewhere better, then got damn near attacked by an angry momma squirrel. My co climber was in stiches laughing at me... would have been some funny video..if smart phones were around...
We all really appreciate the share and truly hope you get back in the saddle asap.

 

[data farm 26]

Just wonder how close a lot of us were to being in your situation.

One of my main takeaways from treebuzz over the years is that incidents like this are not uncommon, even among trained and experienced climbers.

 

[Brando CalPankian]

One of my main takeaways from treebuzz over the years is that incidents like this are not uncommon, even among trained and experienced climbers.

Seems like it's mostly experienced climbers.

 

[Shadowscape]

Seems like it's mostly experienced climbers.

That is because we get complacent. Or we have done it in the past and it worked, even though it wasn't the thing to do, and because it worked okay the last dozen times we feel we can do it again.
Rarely is an accident a true accident. It is usually something we did we shouldn't have done. I'm guilty. I'm sitting here injured and it would be nice to blame it on a freak accident. But the fact is I attempted to climb not knowing what my climb line was over in the canopy because I couldn't see it from the ground, but having bounced up and down I felt it was safe. If I saw my kid do that, I would have yelled at him. I should have yelled at myself and said, no way, not until you know what your rope is hanging on. But I didn't. Pilot Error! Climber Error! Accident? No.