Training Video of Rope in a Chipper

I think I'm reasonably competent at what I do, and I take what I believe are reasonable precautions, BUT I still get whacked every once in awhile.
I'm ok with that. I accept that the nature and practice of my profession means I can and will occasionally get hurt. Which is why I have decent life insurance and disability insurance coverage, and a Last Will...
I told a new hire (awesome worker new to the industry) the other day that if she chooses to become a tree climber, she will get hurt. I believe it is something that is inevitable....unless one's scope of arboriculture only involves writing reports or pruning dwarf fruit trees.
 
I love it because you don't know what accidents I have had I cannot possibly comment. Keep going guys with the attitude that accidents just happen, they are unavoidable and uncontrollable.

I can tell you the relatively minor accidents and injuries I have been involved in can be directly linked to being tired and stressed, rushing, being overly cocky and in one case being untrained for the specific task. In every case the cuts, nicks and property damage were entirely avoidable (oh and I don't consider the minor cuts and abrasions to be included as accidents).

As for long-term damage to the joints etc. that could have been reduced over the long-term with better technique and equipment etc.
 
Well, if this frequently physically challenging work did not involve frequently working at heights in temperature extremes with frequently new hires (what intelligent individual wants to work their entire career dragging brush and feeding a chipper?), for frequently demanding clients inhabiting frequently challenging terrain, I'd support your contention.
In order to support my lavish and profligate lifestyle :) I've gotta produce results. As a self employed arborist, I call this "the real world".
 
Yes tree work is hard, no doubt but that does not mean it should involve accidents and certainly should not cause your death. When at heights we are tied in and double tied-in when cutting, in extreme temperatures we monitor our body temperature and control it or stop the work, new hires are developed incrementally, etc.

I still do not see where this real world includes death or injury being acceptable.
 
Acceptance of the reality of unforeseen events arising from changing circumstances resulting in injuries will make an individual more human and less robotic, imo.
This is like a bunch of the world's illuminati periodically jetting off to a foreign city to sing Kumbaya and proclaim they are gonna hold the global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Centigrade. But I digress.
There is room in this TreeBuzz hive for even those who aren't workers...ie. the drones and those being spoon fed Royal jelly. If my worst fear was getting into a collision driving to work, where I'd studiously strive all day to avoid getting a paper cut, I think my life would be a pedantic affair.
 
Yeah...as in: "no plan survives contact with the enemy"
Would you consider McClellan a better employer than Sherman cause the former's troops were less likely to get maimed or killed?
If you never screw up you will never accomplish anything.
 
mrtree said:
I still do not see where this real world includes death or injury being acceptable.
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It is not acceptable or unacceptable, it just is. Do a dangerous job long enough and bad shit happens. Or it doesn't. Depends on you AND your environments. You can't control everything on every job site. If you think you can, you are only fooling yourself.
 
I believe he's pointing to the avoidable, not unforeseeable. At the Expo, during the Safety presentation, a Slide was put up saying something to the effect, safety before all else. That is not just a slogan but a SOP. None of the incidents thus far presented were unforeseeable in the general sense while the particular outcomes may have been. That the throw line could be dragged into the chipper was foreseeable given the description of the set up. That fingers would be amputated wasn't. It's not the worst case scenario but ranks up there with the worst. It could've been that the only thing that happened was the cord was dragged toward the chipper but caught in time, a near miss.

What I feel needs to be acknowledged in all this is, had the SOP been applied the throw line being caught would've been seen as having the potential to occur and an adjustment to the action plan been made. Starting with a view at all times of achieving the highest degree of safety throughout operations then following on with adjustments to plans. Looking at the set up one could ask themselves, "What are the potential incidents that could occur? What can I do to mitigate them?"

Incidents and their prevention begin with mindset, either way. Perhaps an easy way to start the day with a safety mindset is to kiss your partner and kids good bye and tell them, "I may not be coming home in one piece, tonight". I suspect they may have some questions….
 
mrtree said:
(oh and I don't consider the minor cuts and abrasions to be included as accidents).
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Why stop there? How bad of a scrape would be permitted, etc.?

I understand your message, but accidents do happen. People are imperfect and cannot be always alert, calculating the outcomes, and foreseeing the future. Let's image you are driving your car down a country road and you are obeying the speed limit, following at the correct distance, and let's say, doing everything right. Bam, you hit a deer! Could you have been driving slower, checking the adjacent fields with a spot light? I guess you could, but is that practical? Trees are organic, and I could definitely see a crew following the book exactly and still have a deer run into them.

I agree with your mentality of prepping and planing for safety, always do your best to keep everyone safe and most times that will make the difference between accident or no accident, but I am still going to pack a first aid kit and a trauma kit on the truck.
 
Accidents happen but what we hear of mostly are incidents that were preventable. It's a disservice to ourselves to chalk it up to fate or the unforeseeable. We can take a page from the airline industry, they analyze incidents to clearly identify what led to the incident and they keep going deeper into each event. That is how the incrementally gain and improve the safety of the skies despite more and more planes and people in the air.

While trees are organic they're not running at us out of the dark. :tanguero:
 
This is an awesome demonstration that Cal Line did, thanks for posting the video which led to some great dialogue on safety culture mindset!

I thought you all may appreciate knowing that Bandit now attaches, as a standard on all drum chippers, a rope shearing device. I couldn't find any information on Vermeer or Morbark, but if anyone finds/ has information please share! I know you can get the shearing attachment for old model Bandits if yours isn't outfitted with one. The text below is straight from Bandit's website:

Line/Rope Shear device (STANDARD): The line/rope shearing device installs in the drum housing on Bandit drum-style hand-fed chippers and acts as a counter-knife. It’s designed to improve the chance of severing a rope, line, or similar item should it be drawn into the chipper knives. This patent-pending device is standard on all current Bandit drum-style hand-fed chippers.

Stay safe guys...and thanks again for the throw line story, I will definitely be sharing that one for awareness (=the best way to prevent an accident)!
 
MrBill said:
Does anyone know if this is more likely to happen with a drum style chipper vs a disc style?
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It could happen with either a drum style or a disk style. Bandit has the rope cutter on the disk chippers as well and they sell retro fit kits for models all the way to the early 80's. What happens is when the rope gets to the disk it wraps around the disk shaft at a high rate of speed; the shearing attachment cuts the rope to keep it from wrapping around the shaft.
 
Kevin Myers said:
It could happen with either a drum style or a disk style. Bandit has the rope cutter on the disk chippers as well and they sell retro fit kits for models all the way to the early 80's. What happens is when the rope gets to the disk it wraps around the disk shaft at a high rate of speed; the shearing attachment cuts the rope to keep it from wrapping around the shaft.
Click to expand...
thanks kevin
 
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