Strong as your weakest link.

A

Alves

Location
Madison, Wi
A week ago on tuesday we were doing a pine removal, lots of cankers no drop zone. I had two rookish ground crews, both H2B whos english is scarce and rough at best. Good guys I communicate in spanish as much as i can. Any case i was blocking down a 6 ft piece of pine nothing huge but big, about 50 feet up give or take, I put my most experienced guy that i had ( less than a year) on the porta-wrap.

I comunicated both visually with hand signals, and verbally that i wanted 3 wraps. Some how he misunderstood what i wanted and put at least 5 wraps from what i could see on the Porta wrap. Long story short, The piece went over and stopped, shock loading the tree and the system, and causing me to spike out and get whipped around like a rag doll.

I was lucky for a couple reasons my shoulder straps absorbed some of the blow, and i was tied in with an adjustable friction saver that when i regained composer I could lower myself on.

the blow to your back in a situation like that can be fairly severe, and i consider myself to have been fairly lucky in this instance. I am still off work for awhile and heavily medicated to be able to function ie stand up straight and walk. I may have to do an MRI depending on how im doing this week.


The long of it, when work crew personal get changed up, we need to make sure we are all on the same page, and I feel now more than ever that i need to make sure to train my staff to the point that they understand why something works the way it does not just what it does.

And on a side note, i did not get down and yell or even really talk about the incident at the time. The next day we took a good amount of time to discuss what happened and all aspects of what went wrong.
 
Thanks for sharing your 'near miss'

You handled the situation like a professional. Let the dust settle and then discuss the changes that need to happen so that this isn't repeated. Too often things fly out of control and the "teachable moment" is lost.

Now that you have some 'medication time' you'll be able to post like crazy!

wishing you a speedy and full recovery!
 
You have my sympathy Alves. The same thing has happened to me a couple of times. Its one reason I avoid steel core fliplines and always choke my lifeline so I can come down like this (attached). I am also swithing over to nylon double braid for chunking down - if the rope is left to run, the stretch doesn't come into play. If someone on the ground stands on the rope, takes too many wraps, or a stick gets picked up by the rope, the stretch can save the day.

The friction saver is clipped into the choked krab to pull down after setting the rigging for the next piece. With a 7'6" reach, its all I normally need.

I wish you a full recovery. Don't rush it!
 

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Alves,
Hope you feel better soon, soak your back, and take it easy. You can't rush that type of injury, you'll know when your 100%. I do like the way you handled yourself, and turned it into a positive. Good luck Bro.
 
Geeze Adam... Desk job?

Three wraps? If I'm unsure of my roper, I take smaller pieces. It's rare that we take three wraps when blowing out wood/tops. I'm fortunate in that I work with other climbers (non-idiots) who understand what it's like on the other end of a shock load.

Enjoy your PTO! see you in Point? I left you a message...
 
This situation is the number one reason I choose not to work with anyone other than fluent English speakers. When it comes to dismantling a tree with rigging, we cannot settle for anything less than precise, articulate communication.
 
this last week a couple hours a day, i have been doing a little desk work, going crazy, not doing anything else.

Ill tell you more about it when i see you in point.
 
I have to agree with you that when dismantling a tree, clear communication is a must, that day my best all around guy was pulled from my crew and placed on another, he speaks excellent english, his first language is spanish, which Left me in a difficult situation. Its important to note, that all of our H2B guys are doing english schooling, didnt help in this situation, but i do not hold any grudges or anger against them they are top notch guys in my book. Off of this i think that it again re-iterates the need, for at least on my companies part to develop a stronger, non-verbal communication signals, which we have on a crew by crew scale, but hadnt really established a standard.
 
Zac has a great point. The best groundies are other climbers, ya can't beat it. If the groundie isn't a climber the next best thing is a groundie that knows what is goin' on. THe company i work for makes sure that all groundies, climbers or not know what is going on and such before they do anything else, until then they just pick up our mess! (Even that can become a problem though!)
 
Alves: Glad you lived to tell the story. If you said 3 (tres) wraps and not 5 (cinco), then why did the guy put on 5 (cinco) wraps? Did he question your judgement? Did he let logs run in the past?--Was this his first time shock loading? Were you in a position to check the number of wraps he had on the Port-o-wrap before cutting?
 
I wasnt in a place to visibly see the number of wraps, I Put the most experienced guy i had left on the porta-wrap, i should say the one that i have supervised before, on using the porta-wrap and i have talked him through using it before. As far as i know this was his first time, and i truly dont know why he put the number he did. All i know is that they (other staff) has always had a tendancy to put more wraps then they should, Normally i have the chance to correct them, this time i couldnt see it and had what i thought was a confirmation on the number.


Needless to say im still walking like an 80 year old
 
Ouch! Sounds like you let him off graciously. You must have good patience. I hope that guy truely understands the importance of obeying a climber's judgement and the simple concept of the Port-o-wrap.
 
Get well Alves and yes that was a good show of patiences for you, listened to climber down the near one of clients house yelling at a groundie for doing something. Bad bisinesse if you can not hold yourself at the job sight.
 
thanks for the well wishes, i just had an MRI done today to see how things are going, having some wierd stuff happening. My legs giving out, pain in my heel, and wierdest one is if i push with my left foot, my big toe curls. so we will see.

with regards t being patient, its very hard to teach someone when they are on the defensive, he knew i was hurt that was enough at the time. Plus I cant yell at people well in spanish
grin.gif
 
Re: Strong as your weakest link. Update

Today was my first climbing removal since my accident, I removed two medium sized sweet gums today.
It was very weird and nerve racking to rig out wood again, I think the phsycological damage from the accident was worse than the physical effects.

Everytime I made a cut, i felt like it was all going to happen all over again. But I got it done. And my groundies did excellent work on running my lines.

It is amazing how something like that can really stay in your head.
 
Re: Strong as your weakest link. Update

Just like our predecessor's, the cowboys on the open range, it's good to hear that you're back in the saddle, or harness, again!
 
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