Ft. Collins Tree Trimmer Dies

Number of years ago a gm of mine got a call from his wife in my truck that his previous employer was having an epileptic seizure while in a tree. She did not get the address but had the town. We drove all over and were unable to find him. Had I found him I could have saved him. He drowned in his own fluids while hanging upside down.

Even a police or fireman responding would not be a guarantee that he would be saved if it was not in a boom truck access location. Chances are if there is a 2 man crew and 1 person is trained in rescue it is probably going to be the climber as ground men turn over often, and he obviously cannot save himself.

Seems it would be good sop for people trained in aerial rescue to register with the police and fire dept. and all tree companies be made aware of this so the crew in jeopardy would know who to call and someone that is competent could respond in a timely manner in an emergency.
 
Fire departments are not generally interested in hearing from you. Typically there is a rescue team at the state level and they wish to use their skills. Whether it is a union thing or not, I dunno. It is how our department works. I work on a tower from time to time and have been told many a time they are not going to let me put on the harness or use any of the really cool rigging stuff we have on the tower. All because I am NOT state certified. Ummm, do it EVERY day, not once a year. Who do you think is more qualified? If you have any doubts, I will send you the tower rope power point. I was dumfounded by the errors in the presentation. Have you ever tied a figure eight with a follow through? Great knot huh? Make sure you back up the bowline with a overhand knot too, might slip out. There is lots of what I would consider silliness in the program. Often time missing some of the critical facts about rope use.

I train my staff with this instruction - you have 5 minutes to get the injured down. After that the fire department will be there and they WILL stop you most of the time. They do not want any more victims to have to rescue. If they can't somehow drive the tower to get to you, your golden hour is totally gone.

Our industry rescue training needs some serious work and some standard protocols.
 
Heard about this the other day on the job. Bad deal. Recently started working with a bunch of guys that are new to me. When i found out about this i asked them when the last time they did a ar was. To my suprise none of them have ever done one. Told my boss we have to get on the ball with teaching These guys how to do one and start making it a common practice on the job
 
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