Young man killed felling tree

[Daniel]

Setting up the rigging sdo the ground man cannot hurt you does not imply self lowering... it just means the stuff swings away from you.

 

[treehumper]

Tim and Mason, one works with the tools they have. If the groundperson is inexperienced then you build their skill through teaching them the techniques of running ropes. Amazingly, trees grow in such a manner that they facilitate this. light stuff first and by the time you're onto heavy sections they've had an opportunity to learn and get comfortable with rope management and running techniques.

It's an automatic response to grab on instead of let run. We know this and anticipate it with new groundies. Expecting otherwise is putting yourself at risk, not the groundperson.

 

[Daniel]

well put!

And even experienced groundies can make a mistake

 

[TheTreeMD]

You guys are cross talking. Your comments do not intrinsically exclude the other's comments. *We're all right*:

This guy would be alive if they hadn't chopped the tree, or if the tree had been put down correctly. Regardless, the decision to put the tree down was horrible.

Tell me that either of you doesn't agree with theverything above. Let's go get our Monday on. Sorry I chipped at you earlier, @Daniel . I started this...

What @colb said. Absolutely that tree should not have been cut. Period. However it would not have been an accident had the tree been felled properly and went where it was supposed to go. My best wishes to the families involved. One is missing their brethren, the other has massive amounts of guilt. Smh.

 

[Kevin Myers]

What @colb said. Absolutely that tree should not have been cut. Period. However it would not have been an accident had the tree been felled properly and went where it was supposed to go. My best wishes to the families involved. One is missing their brethren, the other has massive amounts of guilt. Smh.

I agree, the argument is the difference in direct causes and indirect causes. The direct cause, felling a second tree in close proximity to the first, is something that could have been avoided regardless of skill level. The indirect cause, a feller with (assumed) lack of felling skills, requires more time to fix. It requires more training and better supervision of inexperienced workers.
Assume for a moment that the feller was well trained and experienced, this accident still could have occurred (i.e. Poor judgement on the cut, unexpected wind, decay, or lean, etc.). The only sure way to prevent this type of accident in the future is to maintain the 1.5 (or more) tree lengths distance during felling operations.

Or better yet, practice SAFETY FIRST- PRODUCTION SECOND, which I'm sure we can all agree is the main culprit here...we're all guilty of it too (just a reminder )

 

[mrtree]

There is a huge difference between health and safety thinking and the use of skills. Again this accident would not have occurred if the hazard assessment and risk analysis was done that indicated that felling a tree close to a worker could result in death. This thinking needs to be done first! The felling of a tree is a skill and these skills should only be used when the risk of injury or death has been eliminated.

Skills can be used to reduce the hazard and resulting risk but you do not go forward with a job where the the risk is still in the high to extreme range, you shut it down until you can find a safe method to complete the work.