Don't just stand there

I hightail it out of there. The homeowner thought it very funny when I dropped a 100’ dead red oak in the woods and took off. Ran 10’ , set the saw down quickly, ran another 15’ and hid behind a large tree. I ain’t waiting around to find out what’s coming back at the stump when sending a large, crispy tree into a congested area!
 
Unless you've been hit by a falling limb or seen the damage one can do, it's hard to imagine just how much damage even a small limb can do.

Dropped a small tulip limb stub, smaller than a baseball bat tat left a 3 inch depression in the metal cab protector of the bucket truck.

If you take a direct hit that hard, the hard hat isn't going to do you much good...

Took a smallish dead fir limb spearing into tge back of my hard hat as I eas looking down th the cut. You could pick that branch up with 2 fingers ... even with the hard hat taking full impact, i was dazed, temporarily blinded, tearing up... took me five minutes to walk it off.. lomb fell only 20 feet... the higher they are the more dangerous they are...

Canera cut so quickly it was tough to see... he easily could have been killed depending on where hevtook the hit..
 
Couple of years ago I was felling a bunch of poplars in various states of decline in the snow on an acreage. Had cut a Humbolt, no snipe and about an inch higher backcut than the hinge. Was aiming between two spruces. The poplar top threaded thru these spruces just peachy, but caught up a bit on branches on the back (far) side of the spruces as the poplar trunk rolled a bit, starting about a third of the way to the ground. The poplar trunk came back about two or three feet from the stump in less than a second. I had vamoosed at a 45 degree angle but this was a wake up call. These things will eventually try and kill you - Ninety-nine go smooth. but then there's That One.
 
My closest call while felling was a pretty small mulberry. Actually pretty big for a mulberry but small in comparison to most other trees around here. Maybe 20" dbh

The tree had grown in the 24" space between two privacy fences and was pushing one fence over as it grew too large for the area.

Customer removed his fence panels up to the post that was about 2 feet from the trunk and I stood between the two panels for the backcut. Aimed it just to the side of the yard barn and did the backcut and hid between the two fences.

Everything went smooth until I peaked my head out too soon to check the status of the yard barn, right after the trunk left the stump, the lowest limbs had spring-loaded on the ground and shot the trunk backwards. Had enough velocity in that spring back to knock down the neighbor's fence.



That doesn't have a whole lot to do with the opening post, but maybe it'll trigger a heads up if one of you find a similar situation. In hindsight I should have taken another panel down. I would have been able to see the fall of the tree without needing to poke my head out to confirm that all went well.
 

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