freak accident today.. rope through chipper

Thanks for all the good thoughts and wishes..


was driving stick yesterday and back in the bucket today, some deadwood and reduction on a couple trees over open lawn. minimal discomfort... no drugs..

So its looking good. Hopefully find a way to turn this thing around and make even more positive come of it..

We had another long safety meeting and went over all the little mishaps and close calls over the past 6 months, which are far more than I ever used to have.. It was suggested that complacency might be the cause. I'll give it some thought.. BUT I think it's not complacency.. I just think as I've gotten older, I've been losing my mental edge.. just making a lot of poor judgements, mostly on little things.. Its still scary though.. If it was complacency, I could fix that with just a mental adjustment.. this is about the brain.. Chess players peak at 35..
 
Heal well Daniel.

Nobody wants one of us in this online community hurt and the code for this Forum is no trash talk.

It takes some guts, especially in this place to admit fallibility. You are already safer acknowledging that and addressing it than denying it.

On some days I feel like that driving. I feel like I need to give myself fractionally more time to decide things than I used to. It happens to everyone and we adjust our methods to account for these things.
 
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Heal well Daniel.

Nobody wants one of us in this online community hurt and the code for this Forum is no trash talk.

It takes some guts, especially in this place to admit fallibility. You are already safer acknowledging that and addressing it than denying it.

On some days I feel like that driving. I feel like I need to give myself fractionally more time to decide things than I used to. It happens to everyone and we adjust our methods to account for these things.

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Slowing down is probably a good idea.. hard to do when I've spent the last 30 years speeding up.. I get my kicks from working with velocity.. not rushing, just honing each and every move to make it as efficient as possible.. watching inefficiency makes me want to pull my hair out!

I guess I need to take a step back think twice in certain situations. Have to remind myself of that until it becomes habit..

I've also been thinking about doing this brain detox program for some years. Its pretty rigorous ..

http://www.clearbodyclearmind.com/
 
Nice to hear you are healing Daniel, as we age it does seem like the edge starts to dull. Therefore it is good to take things slower and be more vigilant. Good to see ya back on the horse.
 
Daniel,
I hope your foot heals well and quickly.

With the heat here in NH... We switched out climbers today....
I (unusually) spent part of my day rigging and dragging brush.
We pile our brush into what we call a 'chip train'... we don't run the chipper till all the available ground is covered, or the tree is all brushed out.... lines are bagged and all our gear is on the tarp we use as 'Homebase'
Then we start the chipper.
We all focus on chipping... everyone helps..and keeps an eye on everyone else....

I was thinking about your incident today.... As I was dragging brush.. the tips were getting caught in the rigging and climbing ropes.... I was TRYING to 'feel' the ropes as I walked away... I couldn't....

No matter how small the pieces...
With my back turned... I couldn't tell.

Maybe wearing low-cut boots wasn't the only thing that you could do differently?

We did alot of vine work on this property... and used your story as part of our daily safety session....
Stay safe and keep an open mind....

Yours in trees,
Mark
 
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Slowing down is probably a good idea.. hard to do when I've spent the last 30 years speeding up.. I get my kicks from working with velocity.. not rushing, just honing each and every move to make it as efficient as possible.. watching inefficiency makes me want to pull my hair out!



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Being inefficient isn't the same as slowing down. Efficiency comes with experience...just when we need it most! I could definitely be more efficient.

When I'm tired or not feeling well, I slow down and look around and breathe more, and make a point to use all my senses so I don't miss anything. That helped me today when I tossed my rope over a crotch that looked OK, but the feel of pulling the rope over was just wrong. I looked again more carefully and saw the limb was rotten. Totally missed the visual. Just becasue the summer solstice has =d me up at 3:30 this am.
 
Ya happy Solstice everyone..

Ankle is much better only + 5 days.. Worked the bucket (very effectively)and skid steer today.. and did a lot of walking after work.. left the crutches in the car for the most part..

I decided to pay attention to every single little mental error, throughout the day. I'd be embarrassed to post that list.. It really bad!

Gotta do something here..
 
It is interesting I can isolate certain points in my career that have made me change the way I think and do things. A couple were slightly painful and some were just odd epiphanies from rather routine daily occurances. I've actually had one just recently, it happened while the guys were lowering a sizable locust limb.

It's hard to admit when we are wrong. From my experience i always know why something went wrong. Sometimes it is very simple and easy to admit your fault, other times it is even hard to admit to yourself.

Maybe you are different (we all know this:)) but I'm willing to bet you know why this happened and are scared to admit it. Whether you post it on a forum or not does not matter, just come to grips with it yourself and move forward.

Get well soon
 
Almost always do the same.
Except yesterday the opportunity was there for the guys to start chipping while I installed a couple of cables into this torn up sugar we reduced substantially.
Anyway chipper startd and then realized there was a cable, my life line and the tail of a back tie.

I had a few minutes before the guys would be at the brush near the ropes and started frantically gathering up the lines nearest them.

And finally at one point I had to get there attention.
If you can wait for the chipper to be out of load and yell
YOU in as high a pitch as possible, it seems to work better than any whistle.

Have a great weekend!
 
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I decided to pay attention to every single little mental error, throughout the day. I'd be embarrassed to post that list.. It really bad!

Gotta do something here..

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Daniel... I'm usually super critical of you... I'll admit that.. but what you wrote here is one of the most encouraging posts that I've ever read on the buzz....

It's a post like this that helps me remember that we're all brothers..(and sisters..)..
We're all different.. and on different journeys...
But we're all fragile bags of saline (Dunlap)...

Heal quickly.... thanks for sharing your incident and that thought....It will show up in our next safety session.
 
Ankle is doing much better.. healing fast.. wasa off the crutches on Thursday, walking freely on Friday, but started aching on Saturday, so back on the crutches over the weekend..
Worked 8 hours in the bucket yesterday, using a cane.. had to take a couple breaks.. thought I might have over done it, but felt fine this AM.. only used the cane a little today.. some bucket work and set a pull line from the ladder... running a ground saw, etc..

Was talking to an awesome holistic health guy at the supplement store today.. told him about the mental errors.. he suggested it could be a blood sugar issue, which made a lot of sense.. I ate well, and was pretty sharp right after lunch..
 
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But we're all fragile bags of saline (Dunlap)...


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...and calcium ;)

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"...we are stardust, we are golden, we are billion year old carbon..."
 
Hope you're healing well. Don't overdo it too soon.

We were wrapping up a job last week and my employee wanted to chip while I was bagging up the ropes. Even though he was a long way away for the size of most of the brush, it was maple limbs, so long, narrow, and fast to feed. I had to remind him to wait, just in case, as the rope was in some other brush. Stuff happens.
 
So far so good..
its two weeks today and I got out in sandals yesterday.. Still gonna wear the boot for work a while longer. Had the second set of x-rays yesterday... waiting to hear the results..

Thank God for the bucket.. I've been able to work in that without putting much pressure on the left ankle. Same for the skid loader and the stump grinder.. Got away light on this one.. valuable lesson about keeping the mind sharp..

If anyone has any throw away ropes, I plan on doing a video demonstration.. set up a couple different scenarios..
 
Good to hear you are doing well Daniel. Just a thing with me and ropes if they are not in the bag or coiled outta the way of brush that chipper is not running. I have a little pre work talk with the guys about where the ropes go during work and after the job. Only took one groundy from a contract service to start dragging brush not looking for me to yell down and tell him he hooked a line.

Funny how just the littlest of things can cause so much trouble.
 
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