Tell me something stupid you did!

Taking a skinny white pine top on what I thought was a calm day, misjudged the lean and a gust came through and took it straight backwards, landed between 4 newly planted trees, through a gate and missed the neighbors gutters by a few inches. Better to be lucky than good.

Punched myself in the mouth starting a saw more times than I care to admit.

Did a backflip out of a tree, landed gracefully, unclipped my system then tripped on my own feet, went down over a retaining wall and down a ravine. Got so tangled in scrubby brush with my lanyard two co workers had to help me out of that mess.

Was felling trees down in a ravine, co workers were throwing walnuts at me and got rocked right in the melon, didn't hurt but fuck those guys so I immediately dropped and went limp, made them carry me up the ravine before I got up and told them I was fine.
 
Beginning from not hurt to whole lotta hurt
left my tip in to the piece i was dropping, lucky it rolled out:birra:
missed my clip in and landed on my back from about 10',
flipped the chipy chute onto my finger
cut the hinge out of Elm with a big willow laying on the top, Willow hunted my down and and bruiesed my shoulder from top down to palm and top down to hip, every colour you can imagine in a bruise.
 
I was roping a double trunk white oak down between two houses. We weren't going to finish it that day, but I wanted to get a load of logs out. My rigging point was on a fairly thick piece of wood, for swinging brush. But I kept taking bigger and bigger logs as I got lower, not thinking about where I had my rope set, or what that point could handle. Then I cut one, heard that distinctive sound of a tough, stringy, 8 inch white oak lead being ripped apart and ground guys panicking. The log, branch the rope was in, and my brand new aluminium block all came hurtling down. Some how landed perfectly between the two houses and the block hit the only patch of dirt in the whole area getting not a single scratch on it. The log put a big dent in the customers cobble stone driveway, but he was having it replaced anyway.
 
I was removing about 60 cherry trees from a wooded yard and leaving them up 20 feet so the customers excavating contractor could rip out the stumps. I thought the one I was in would be ok with no rope, it looked to have a slight lean in the right direction. So I spike up the required 20 feet and make my cut. Of course the wind starts to blow just as the tree starts to move. There was about 60 foot of tree above my cut. The wind blows it to the side just enough to get it stuck in another tree, with the 24" diameter butt still sitting on the top of the stag, pointed right at my chest, and seemingly ready to slide back and snap the top half of my body off at my harness. I hadn't even brought a climb line up with me, just spikes and lanyard cause it was only 20 feet. After a couple seconds of watching my life flash before my eyes, I spiked back down as fast as I could without shaking the tree to badly so as not to dislodge the 60 foot hanger over my head and got the fuck out from under it. The rest of the trees got ropes no matter what and now I never climb without an emergency decent option.
 
Was ground guy whilst cutter was in bucket pruning large branch into pieces over asphalt driveway (approx two feet diameter). Was cutting pieces approx 3 feet long and lowering with a trunk wrap (thick bark tree) standing an gravel side. The canopy was so thick couldn’t see bucket, cutter or branch - had to rely on verbals.

Anyway cutter decided to take big piece (at least twice the size) without letting me know. Once cut the log came rocketing down through the canopy whilst I was gravel skiing towards the trunk holding on for grim death trying to save driveway. Left a beautiful spiral burnt into the tree. Luckily tail from trunk was longer than the drop distance from the block...

Should have let go but would be shame to have a pond in the middle of the driveway...
 
Great thread Too much saw dust!! We all have a little something to learn from each other.

Early on as a green climber I took on a buzzy for a friend. Red oak 36”dbh 40’ lead heading out over the house drop ( the service ran from the road to a pole before going to the house-this is where I was working) I set a block half way out the lead. I had a groundie running the porty-I should’ve gone out another 10 feet on the lead! After cutting it free it hung up on the service, no biggie the service is still intact and after a ton of cursing and polesawing I freed it up and got it down. I continued on removing the rest of the tree, after about a half hour my buddies wife yells out the window “smells like fire”!! I yell to call 911 and the power company...turns out I blew the neutral!! It fried up his NEW fridge, boiler, well pump, and a bunch of surge protectors. I was lucky not to burn down the house and or electrocute my ground man!! Lesson learned -even brushing a house drop with a limb can be catastrophic!
 
I have one. Not really tree related, but towing related.

I used to do generator tune ups for portable generators. It was a good way to barter with people. One day I was loading up my trailer with generators to bring home and service. I was using a small single axle trailer that had been extended several feet. I loaded it up from front to back with small generators. All strapped in and ready to go. My tow vehicle was a 1979 mercedes 300D. Very good cars with lots of torque. They are very front heavy cars. The car is rear wheel drive.

The stupid part comes in to play while towing. It turns out that my trailer had negative tongue weight because of all the generators. I got most of the way home. I was about to slow down for my turn and my rear wheels get lifted off the ground. The car and trailer started to fish tail very violently. I was able to control the rig to a slow down with the steering wheel and front brakes. With the wheels in the air, I downshifted and tried to match road and wheel speed. As I slowed down the rear wheels started to grab and I accelerated a bit to get rid of the fish tail. Once I was cruising smoothly I did a gradual deceleration while I circled the block. None of the load had shifted even though I thought I lost a generator.

The lesson learned is about loading trailers so that they are balanced and that you can never have too many ratchet straps on your load. Positive tongue weight is important for control, stability and ride quality.
 
Those lite fabric gloves that are dipped in extra grippy blue rubber can be dangerous. I had a finger get pulled into my rope grab mechanism due to the non-slip quantities of the finger tips. Wells lamont cowhide cinch gloves from here on out. Controllable slide is important
 
Big Kawika said:
Those lite fabric gloves that are dipped in extra grippy blue rubber can be dangerous. I had a finger get pulled into my rope grab mechanism due to the non-slip quantities of the finger tips. Wells lamont cowhide cinch gloves from here on out. Controllable slide is important
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I had the rubber dips get sucked into hitches many times. I use ironclad box handlers now and they have no such problems, great grip, and they don't peel.
 
This story requires a little supplemental education:

thunderf***
[thun-der-fawk]

verb
1. to quickly piece down a tree in large sections, with regard to structures and obstacles, but not grounds.

noun
1. a pretty good name for your next crust metal band.

So, one time, I was rigging out a big Ash in tight quarters. I had an opening for some air mail with a few large laterals and a top over it, and room to fit it big, so big I went. The lowest and largest lateral was 16" where I made my 3-point undercut, a little over halfway through the stem. As usual when I am thunderf***ing (and, as one normally thunderf***s), I yelled out "Thunderf*** HOOOOO!!!," in my best Lion-O (a la Thundercats) just before executing my top cut.

This was before I was religious about bar maintenance.

A quarter-inch into my cut, a burr on my saw bar caught the side of the kerf. My arrogant smile took a crap as the broomstick ends of the branch swung down almost plumb, before the fibers let loose, as I desperately and hopelessly ran my saw, stuck against the burr. The huge limb let off the cut, hit the tips first, and swung the butt down a full length behind my intended drop zone, straight into the only louvred window I have ever seen (to this day) in Minnesota.

I've kept a lot of lessons with me from that day, the least of which being: thunderf***ers beware!
 
RBJtree said:
I was removing about 60 cherry trees from a wooded yard and leaving them up 20 feet so the customers excavating contractor could rip out the stumps. I thought the one I was in would be ok with no rope, it looked to have a slight lean in the right direction. So I spike up the required 20 feet and make my cut. Of course the wind starts to blow just as the tree starts to move. There was about 60 foot of tree above my cut. The wind blows it to the side just enough to get it stuck in another tree, with the 24" diameter butt still sitting on the top of the stag, pointed right at my chest, and seemingly ready to slide back and snap the top half of my body off at my harness. I hadn't even brought a climb line up with me, just spikes and lanyard cause it was only 20 feet. After a couple seconds of watching my life flash before my eyes, I spiked back down as fast as I could without shaking the tree to badly so as not to dislodge the 60 foot hanger over my head and got the fuck out from under it. The rest of the trees got ropes no matter what and now I never climb without an emergency decent option.
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did the same thing with a doug fir, took the top at about 5" but still was 30' or so, the butt pushed back over the spar into my stomach. I was wedged so hard I couldn't move and breathing was had. Working solo, in the middle of a bunch of 40 acre parcels. Knew no one would hear me over the wind. Managed to fire the saw off straight up over my head, and cut that f-er off myself.
 
evo said:
did the same thing with a doug fir, took the top at about 5" but still was 30' or so, the butt pushed back over the spar into my stomach. I was wedged so hard I couldn't move and breathing was had. Working solo, in the middle of a bunch of 40 acre parcels. Knew no one would hear me over the wind. Managed to fire the saw off straight up over my head, and cut that f-er off myself.
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That kind of stuff makes a guy think about things. I have 2 kids and I know you have kids too. I really want to be alive and healthy for my kids. Too many times I've had close calls because of freak gusts of wind, ground guys doing the wrong thing with a rope, or a slight miscalculation . I almost decided to give it up and find safer employment, but I've put too much into it and starting over at nearly 40 years old is not my idea of a good time. I decided to instead be extra safe, lol.
 
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