Trebuchet

macswan · Dec 19, 2017

So this piece...

I am up a decent sized oak, a removal, 50 yards from a house. I am at my TIP 45-50' above ground, I blow the first of two tops into the woods, all systems go, no problem. Second top goes into the woods in the opposite direction of the house, tips hit first, butt slaps down like a beaver tail and that piece...gets catapulted out of the structure, and I struggled to comprehend its trajectory, I see it coming to my height in the tree, that's impressive, shit! It's going above and past me into the yard, shit! It's going over the yard, it's gonna hit the house, holy shit! It's going over the FUCKING THREE STORY HOUSE!!!
"Watch out" i bellow across the yard, my groundie looking up at me in the side yard very far away, confused. I then tell him what happened, he walks around the front and finds the price lying like 15 yards in front of the THREE STORY HOUSE! The sneaky prick flew 10' to my left about 60' in the air and about 70 yards out to the front yard. Tried to post a short explanatory vid, but it beat me. May try again.

It was fucking mind blowing

evo · Dec 19, 2017

oh crap! we had something like this (not as big nor high)... It cleared a fence while it was pinwheeling and went through the neighbors window...

oldoakman · Dec 19, 2017

How cold was it? I have had pieces of elm hit the pavement and bounce over the bucket truck in winter when the wood was frozen, but never a trajectory like that. Glad all came out ok and no one or thing was injured or damaged.

Steve Connally · Dec 19, 2017

Yikes.

macswan · Dec 19, 2017

I think when the tips hit the chunk snapped loose, and when the butt slapped down it got hurled, all kinetic force of the drop boiled down to that one spot and blam

theatertech87 · Dec 19, 2017

One of my favorite tree oops videos ought to illustrate it pretty well (though your's sounds WAY more impressive)

macswan · Dec 21, 2017

Yeah like that... but scarier

Treezybreez · Dec 21, 2017

Sphincter tightning moment.

Treetopflyer · Dec 21, 2017

macswan said:
View attachment 48432
So this piece...

I am up a decent sized oak, a removal, 50 yards from a house. I am at my TIP 45-50' above ground, I blow the first of two tops into the woods, all systems go, no problem. Second top goes into the woods in the opposite direction of the house, tips hit first, butt slaps down like a beaver tail and that piece...gets catapulted out of the structure, and I struggled to comprehend its trajectory, I see it coming to my height in the tree, that's impressive, shit! It's going above and past me into the yard, shit! It's going over the yard, it's gonna hit the house, holy shit! It's going over the FUCKING THREE STORY HOUSE!!!
"Watch out" i bellow across the yard, my groundie looking up at me in the side yard very far away, confused. I then tell him what happened, he walks around the front and finds the price lying like 15 yards in front of the THREE STORY HOUSE! The sneaky prick flew 10' to my left about 60' in the air and about 70 yards out to the front yard. Tried to post a short explanatory vid, but it beat me. May try again.

It was fucking mind blowing

Lucky trophy piece right there ..mount that one on the limbwalker hall of fame.

Daniel · Jan 12, 2018

One thing is for sure, if you;re in this business long enough, you're bound to see some strange things go down

SuperK · Jan 12, 2018

That is epically crazy, is that a word epically, totally nuts though!

treehumper · Jan 12, 2018

Wow, that's some impressive arc! I recently had a smaller piece of an ash launched back up to me in the bucket. Was like a fly ball hit to center field. I watched it come up and towards me. Put up my hand and caught it, hero like. :bailando:

TimBr · Jan 13, 2018

macswan said:
View attachment 48432
So this piece...

I am up a decent sized oak, a removal, 50 yards from a house. I am at my TIP 45-50' above ground, I blow the first of two tops into the woods, all systems go, no problem. Second top goes into the woods in the opposite direction of the house, tips hit first, butt slaps down like a beaver tail and that piece...gets catapulted out of the structure, and I struggled to comprehend its trajectory, I see it coming to my height in the tree, that's impressive, shit! It's going above and past me into the yard, shit! It's going over the yard, it's gonna hit the house, holy shit! It's going over the FUCKING THREE STORY HOUSE!!!
"Watch out" i bellow across the yard, my groundie looking up at me in the side yard very far away, confused. I then tell him what happened, he walks around the front and finds the price lying like 15 yards in front of the THREE STORY HOUSE! The sneaky prick flew 10' to my left about 60' in the air and about 70 yards out to the front yard. Tried to post a short explanatory vid, but it beat me. May try again.

It was fucking mind blowing

Holy cow!

macswan · Jan 19, 2018

Daniel said:
One thing is for sure, if you;re in this business long enough, you're bound to see some strange things go down

That is my thought process, welp decade in, I guess gravity just turns off sometimes now.

JD3000 · Jan 20, 2018

Gravity sucks.

Kris Anderson · Jan 20, 2018

That's crazy, I had a similar incident except the piece blew sideways and luckily hit the top wire of a fence . I don't think I would be writing this if it missed the fence. There was no time to react

TimBr · Jan 20, 2018

@Kris Anderson; Wow, again! Is this type of incident anything you can learn from, in order to better set up in the future in a way that might protect you? Or is it such a low probability event that there is nothing you feel you could do, practically speaking? As in, you would not be willing to change how you work for something that might occur once in two million attempts at doing a similar task. Just a fluke that cannot be defended against, and if your time is up, your time is up? Like maybe dropping down behind a stem after you drop a top, as a small barrier between you and any possible projectiles? Like a soldier taking any cover that's available to soak up enemy fire? Thanks in advance for any comments.

Tim

treehumper · Jan 21, 2018

TimBr said:
As in, you would not be willing to change how you work for something that might occur once in two million attempts at doing a similar task. Just a fluke that cannot be defended against, and if your time is up, your time is up?

Not willing to change how one works based on new data? That is a problem in our industry. Take a stroll through the FB groups and you'll see plenty of that. In this thread alone there's 3 accounts of pieces flying so, I'd say it's worth considering.

Instead of downplaying it or calling it a fluke how about talking about what to look for in order to mitigate such hazards. It would be like identifying potential widowmakers. That may seem to be over the top but all plays into the degree of professionalism that we bring to the table.

For me, things to consider are:

species, how brittle is the wood?
targets, those that have the potential to incur damage if a piece does explode off of the tree.
would it be better to dismantle the tree and rig it down then to just bomb in despite having the drop zone?

macswan · Jan 21, 2018

Years ago I got hit by a piece like a baby brother to the one in the op. It came side ways off a dropped top. I was thirty feet away and it happened faster than I could react. Hit me in the shoulder and spun me around