Two landscapers injured while using stump grinder

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Most accurate account was that the cable feed was out 100 plus feet . Guy was chipping , the cable was not under tension , got caught with the brush , started to get fed into the chipper , got wrapped on the drum , dragged a man and lassoed the man feeding the chipper . Terrible injuries to the one and fatal to the other . Get off the tension deal , rope will kill you too . Chippers are serious machines , don't know the difference from tree limb human limb or cable , it's got to eat . Becareful what you feed it !

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Thanks for the real info Riggs, as always.

Cable, rope, doesn't matter, what gets fed and hits the cutter wheel is going to move at lightning speed and going to bust up what ever gets in the way.

I met a guy in CA, he did a safety demo with his crew, put out 100 feet of caution tape on the ground, stretched it out.

attached it to a limb.

fed it to the chipper, went slow through the feed wheels, then when it hit the drum, gone in a blink of the eye and the guys were stunned.

Make a rule at your company, feed wheels are STOPED when ever the winch cable is pulled out. NO EXCEPTIONS.

That's what we did when we got our first winch chipper in the year 2000 and never any close calls, just some yelling at new guys to reinforce the lesson.
 
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I met a guy in CA, he did a safety demo with his crew, put out 100 feet of caution tape on the ground, stretched it out.

attached it to a limb.

fed it to the chipper, went slow through the feed wheels, then when it hit the drum, gone in a blink of the eye and the guys were stunned.

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Exactly... when you actually see what happens, its an eye opener.. VERY DANGEROUS.. one SEEMINGLY small careless mistake and unstoppable forces are put in motion at lightning speed! I could see the end of a climbing line that gets sucked into a chipper taking the entire tree down w climber..
 
Last year I tossed a limb into the chipper and had forgotten about a throw line stuck in the branches. In the time it took for me to feel something whipping around my leg and look down, 300 feet of line was gone and wrapped around the drum. 5.5 foot circumference drum at 2600 RPMS means the 300 feet of line was sucked up in under 2 seconds.

Be careful out there. I extend my sincere condolences to the deceased and recovering Tree Men.
 
Daniel,

Isn't this the company that you've complained about for years; that they are too cheap, too fast and too unsafe?

This is the company that has pushed you to "Murph those trees over the years"?
 
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Daniel,

Isn't this the company that you've complained about for years; that they are too cheap, too fast and too unsafe?

This is the company that has pushed you to "Murph those trees over the years"?

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X, The one and only Ricks tree service. Hack um wack um and move on. Same company that caused Murph to "Murph". Just last week saw them working already, not any safer then the week before.
 
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Daniel,

Isn't this the company that you've complained about for years; that they are too cheap, too fast and too unsafe?

This is the company that has pushed you to "Murph those trees over the years"?

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I wouldn't label it complaining. at least not about their prices. It's still amazing that a company with all those resources can't devote any of them to teach proper pruning.

They push their guys pretty hard with overtime. Who knows if that contributed to the accident. I think there is a general lack of awareness in the industry about the danger of lines or cables getting sucked into the chipper. There definitely should be something in the ansi standard about not allowing loose cables when the feed wheels are engaged.
 
ANSI can have all the sorts of standards but as long as it is only voluntary it has no real impact. The issue is the absence of a culture of safety. We are still playing at this like a bunch of amateurs. If we are to be taken seriously as professionals then we'll start to treat health and safety as a core element of our professional conduct. Look at other industries that had horrendous safety records and what they did and do today. All the while improving their productivity and profitability.

Health and safety needs to become a non-negotiable.
 
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ANSI can have all the sorts of standards but as long as it is only voluntary it has no real impact. The issue is the absence of a culture of safety. We are still playing at this like a bunch of amateurs. If we are to be taken seriously as professionals then we'll start to treat health and safety as a core element of our professional conduct. Look at other industries that had horrendous safety records and what they did and do today. All the while improving their productivity and profitability.

Health and safety needs to become a non-negotiable.

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In a way I have to agree with you ANSI does need "teeth", something that binds the industry to use it.
On the other hand I want to disagree, because I believe ANSI is making a real impact. I say this because we have people, like us, talking about it, using it, and helping to adjust it every day. 8 years ago I didnt know what ANSI was other than a bunch of letters. I was educated by a group of guys that I now work with. And that is impact, we need to find a way to continue to share it to the rest of the industry. If thats one man at a time, so be it. We still need to pass that knowledge on.
 
Formal training and schools teach and use ANSI standards, or at least the school I attended did. I'm sure the instructor mentioned they were voluntary but he talked about them so much I believed the rules to be our work code, still do.
 
Agreed! Definitely teaching it and promoting it at the grassroots level has helped to spread it and elevate it to the point where it is seen as a viable reference for thsoe who wish to operate as professionals.

Humber taught it as part of the Workplace safety component of the apprenticeship. The Ontario chapter of the ISA was lobbying the Province to adopt it as the OHSA standard for arboriculture as the current practice is to apply rules from similar industries or are deemed applicable. Many things fall in between as we all know.

When I first moved to NJ I couldn't believe the lack of PPE use even by major companies. It was the exception not the rule. Chainsaw pants had (and still have) to be special ordered from most authorized Stihl or Husky dealers. Sure you can buy chaps but those are rarely sold. Recently a larger competitor asked our jr climber how much his new Pfanner Gladiators cost, to which he replied, "less then a funeral".

This competitor doesn't supply nor do any of his crew wear chainsaw protective pants. Despite the rule requiring them to. "Too expensive" is their mantra.

There comes a time for the industry to take a stand.
 
Any updates on how the man who survived this accident is doing?

I'd also guess that lawsuits against Ricks tree service and Bandit (as that's the chipper pictured at the accident scene) will be forthcoming. Certainly OSHA will be levying fines as they always do when something like this happens.
 
This is a good eye opener. It will be discussed tomorrow morning with the guys. I've went over this before but I haven't touched this subject in a while.

Hope this thread will help keep my crew safe thank s for posting.
 
Regardless of our thoughts Ricks Tree Service will pass this off as a cable malfunction and ignore the fact that the malfunction is actually in their lack of safety culture. I heard they changed out to Amsteel cable lines. Thats a start but has their safety culture changed? I doubt it. This isnt the first time Ricks has had major accidents and probably not the last. Unfortunate.
 
I'm still curious if anyone knows anything about the man who survived the accident. Is he expected to make a full recovery, or will he have some kind of permanent disability now?
 
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