I'm a climber who refuses to wear typical chainsaw chaps in a tree precisely because the danger of entanglement exceeds the danger of me cutting myself in the leg with a chainsaw, which I've never done.
However I was in the vicinity of a boneheaded muscle bound 230 lb groundman cutting green logs into firewood wearing shorts, using an 044 magnum. And while I didn't witness the kickback and injury myself, when I arrived a minute later, he had both hands trying to hold his upper inner thigh together, and failing as the puddle of bood he stood in got larger with each beat of his big macho heart.
I unclipped two speedline loops and biners off my saddle, girthed the loops together and used them as a tourniquet above the gaping 6 inch wound, using one of the biners as a twist stick, I kept twisting even as he screamed in pain and pounded on my back, and the rest of the groundies jumped in and held him tightly as I kept twisting until the spurting blood stopped.
It took 3 groundies along with me holding the biner tight to get magilla gorilla into the passenger seat of my tooltruck, a tiny toy4x4. Magilla was still conscious and howling when I slapped him hard and told him to hold the damn biner tight against his leg or bleed to death, and he complied.
I was less than a mile from Sharps Emergency hospital on Torrey Pines Rd in La Jolla. But as Murphy's law reared it's ugly head with a road closure of Torrey Pines Rd itself before me, Magilla passes out, let's go of the biner tourniquet as blood spurts again. Putting my truck in second gear, I reached over grabbed the biner and twisted it tight again with one hand twisting and the other driving, off road now and into the parking lots of the businesses and institutes next to Sharps Hospital. Busting though hedge barriers separating Sharps from its neighbors I finally arrive at the emergency entrance and start yelling for a guerney, which was brought to my passenger door quickly. Crawling out that side with my hand gripping the biner, I stayed with Magilla right into the operating room until a beg owned doctor approached me offering to hold the biner and take over. I released the biner to him, he lost his gloved grip a bit on it and blood flowed again as I left the room. Nurses and male orderlies plied me for info on the patient. but I walked straight back outside and into my truck to get it out of the ambulance lanes to emergency.
As I parked my truck out of the way and shut it off. I was overwhelmed by the relief of having succeeded in getting groundie to emergency alive. Then caught a glimpse of my bloodstained face in the rear view mirror, looked down at my own blood soaked arms hands and sleeves, the passenger floor and seat thick with congealing blood. I cried for a few minutes, gathered my whits about me, and went back into emergency to provide the details of the accident I knew.
Magilla lived. but only just barely escaped bleeding to death by cutting his femoral artery with an 044 magnum while wearing shorts like a macho idiot.
And yes, a pair of chainsaw chaps would have lessened the severity of the cut by a huge margin, since Magilla told me the kickback occurred when he rolled a log over and used his upper bar to cut a strap with the saw pointing down at the ground. Magilla never returned to tree work and says he's much happier to flip pizzas for a living downtown. It took repeated requests from me to finally get my nylon loops and biner back him months later, laundered of course.
Speedlines are way handy in this biz!
jomoco
