branch to the face - tough to watch

Feel bad for the guy, but it seems to me that he knew he was in a bad spot, but froze when it started moving. Seemed a little hesitant going up the ladder and barely cut before it swung, which means he'd likely already cut and got out of the way expecting it to fall. Never did and went back to cutting. At that height it would have been easy enough to throw a tag line on the end and help gravity, while standing out of the way.

Obviously telling this guy what he could have done differently won't help; but maybe it will help if a guy new to the business and due to reach couldn't get it with a bucket truck, like they likely did the rest of this tree, and can't climb. Hopefully it'll help.

I did try to find the follow up story and was unsuccessful, might be better off, but did run across another video of a climber with a crane. No PPE, not tied into the tree and too big of a pick. Crane must have flipped over (it wasn't in the video) but there was a lot of yelling as the piece went down instead of up. Then the crane's boom smacked the climber in the head and knocked him out of the tree. I won't post the video as I don't have any of the story, and the climber likely didn't survive.

Just goes to show how dangerous it can be, and I hope the best for both people shown in these videos.
 
Jehinten said:
Feel bad for the guy, but it seems to me that he knew he was in a bad spot, but froze when it started moving. Seemed a little hesitant going up the ladder and barely cut before it swung, which means he'd likely already cut and got out of the way expecting it to fall. Never did and went back to cutting. At that height it would have been easy enough to throw a tag line on the end and help gravity, while standing out of the way.

Obviously telling this guy what he could have done differently won't help; but maybe it will help if a guy new to the business and due to reach couldn't get it with a bucket truck, like they likely did the rest of this tree, and can't climb. Hopefully it'll help.

I did try to find the follow up story and was unsuccessful, might be better off, but did run across another video of a climber with a crane. No PPE, not tied into the tree and too big of a pick. Crane must have flipped over (it wasn't in the video) but there was a lot of yelling as the piece went down instead of up. Then the crane's boom smacked the climber in the head and knocked him out of the tree. I won't post the video as I don't have any of the story, and the climber likely didn't survive.

Just goes to show how dangerous it can be, and I hope the best for both people shown in these videos.
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That guy also froze. Could have dived onto the corregated roof. He had to die. No way he survived that. That vid was also brutal.
 
Jehinten said:
but did run across another video of a climber with a crane. No PPE, not tied into the tree and too big of a pick. Crane must have flipped over (it wasn't in the video) but there was a lot of yelling as the piece went down instead of up. Then the crane's boom smacked the climber in the head and knocked him out of the tree. I won't post the video as I don't have any of the story, and the climber likely didn't survive.
Click to expand...

If it’s the one I think it is, it appeared the camera guy was in some serious danger too, the vid cuts out with him running. Iirc it wasn’t a nice straight up pick, it was more of a monster hunk of wood shockloaded with the boom off to one side.
Wasn’t blood and gore, but be a fuckin miracle if the climber survived.
 
The thing that confuses me about the original video that is the subject of this thread is just how easily that hunk of wood was tripped to come down the way that it did. The video resolution seems really low, so I cannot tell whether or not that huge branch had already been cut on the top side. If they were somehow able to cut a large portion of that branch from the top side already, I am mystified as to why it did not get finished while they were up there in the first place.

The whole scenario puzzles me. It looks like a veteran tree service, with all of those huge chunks laying around. How could they not predict that that huge limb would swing down and back the way that it did? It makes me wonder if the injured guy was just a ground guy who got asked to try something he should not have been involved in, in the first place.
 
Sometimes when rigging, a heavy piece will swing in and clip the stem of the tree, and I like to look at the impact damage it does. I do this because it acts as a mental trigger for me to pay attention to that shit. It's usually not very impressive damage, until you think about how hard you would have to swing a sledge hammer to knock that much bark and wood off. Then think about what that sledge hammer would do to your head. Our flesh peels off like a rotten banana peel. The skin on an orange is tougher than we are. It creeps me the fuck out. But, I find that it helps me to keep perspective when I look at the damage a swinging log can do.

Whatever works for you, to help you keep that perspective, no matter how goofy it sounds.... just do it. Because you really can't live forever, and no matter how good things are going on those days when it all falls into place, you're playing your best game, and the crew is smooth and pro to the max... you're still a split second away from death and dismemberment.

I no longer gain much perspective from the blood and gore of things gone bad. I need simple, daily reminders to stay on top of the game. For me, I just look for simple things that I see on every job site to keep me thinking about how badly I do not want to spend time eating lousy food in some hospital that smells like disinfectant and rotting corpses.

Stay safe guys... that poor guy could be any one of us, on any given day... we all screw up, sooner or later, if we forget how much easier it is to die than it is to live.
 
JeffGu said:
Sometimes when rigging, a heavy piece will swing in and clip the stem of the tree, and I like to look at the impact damage it does. I do this because it acts as a mental trigger for me to pay attention to that shit. It's usually not very impressive damage, until you think about how hard you would have to swing a sledge hammer to knock that much bark and wood off. Then think about what that sledge hammer would do to your head. Our flesh peels off like a rotten banana peel. The skin on an orange is tougher than we are. It creeps me the fuck out. But, I find that it helps me to keep perspective when I look at the damage a swinging log can do.

Whatever works for you, to help you keep that perspective, no matter how goofy it sounds.... just do it. Because you really can't live forever, and no matter how good things are going on those days when it all falls into place, you're playing your best game, and the crew is smooth and pro to the max... you're still a split second away from death and dismemberment.

I no longer gain much perspective from the blood and gore of things gone bad. I need simple, daily reminders to stay on top of the game. For me, I just look for simple things that I see on every job site to keep me thinking about how badly I do not want to spend time eating lousy food in some hospital that smells like disinfectant and rotting corpses.

Stay safe guys... that poor guy could be any one of us, on any given day... we all screw up, sooner or later, if we forget how much easier it is to die than it is to live.
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I see a reminder and feel it's pain everyday now. And this was just loading a log on the truck. It smashed my pinky to nothing. Destroyed the end so bad it had to be amputated. And I have always been so careful on hand placement when loading heavy logs ....that guy above got anihilated as fuck....life altering. Thankfully mine is just a reminder and I still can climb everyday painfree. The next morning though....that is another thing. Grip forever compromised by one moment of just not being in the now.....
2019-07-05 13.25.31.webp
 
swingdude said:
I see a reminder and feel it's pain everyday now. And this was just loading a log on the truck. It smashed my pinky to nothing. Destroyed the end so bad it had to be amputated. And I have always been so careful on hand placement when loading heavy logs ....that guy above got anihilated as fuck....life altering. Thankfully mine is just a reminder and I still can climb everyday painfree. The next morning though....that is another thing. Grip forever compromised by one moment of just not being in the now.....
View attachment 60829
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Reminds me of Thing T Thing from the Adams Family.

The Adams family started when Uncle Fester farted.
 
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