Your close calls

treebear

treebear

Location
Western Norway
What close calls have you experienced. I don´t ask out of curiousity merely because we all can learn from each others faults.
I´ll put my head on the block first. Eight years ago I was hit by a scotch pine while felling one of my own. The one I got in my head was felled by my mate working just out of sight but not out of range. Totally my fault since I moved into his area without letting him know.
Once, just started to climb, I was about to take the top out of a birch. Everything was perfectly set up, had made the face cut and started the the back cut when I suddenly saw my climbing line still attached in the top.
Three years ago I was hit by a big springpole just under my nose.
All close calls that could have been fatal. Makes you think a bit of what you are doing and maybe a bit more careful.
Svein
 
I had a post about the 26 stitches in my knee a while back. I have also broken 2 fingers when a topping cut was made without a tag line and I went to pull myself out of the way when it was going my way. Well, I grabbed the rope and sucked 2 fingers through the pulley. They had to pull on the rigging line from the grounf in order for me to get my fingers about of the pulley. Thas was a 6 months of climbing.


You have to understand I initially worked for a hack who had me doing very dangerous stuff and I didn't know any better and didn't listen to my inner voice screaming like a 10 year old.

On a early job I was dropping a 28" dbh gum I had topped out. I was citting the back cut and when they pulled the tree over it landed in a crotch of another tree I hadn't taken all the way down. Well, the trunk lifted off the gound and in slow motion the trunk lifted and slid to me. It was like it was all in slow motion. It threw me about 15 feet after it hit me in my left thigh. Thought my femur was broken.......Well, as I was flying through the air I could see the trunk coming at me sliding out og the crotch. All I could think was how the fire department was gonna have to cut my body out from under the trunk. Well, I landed on my back and then the tree landed on the left side of my chest, just missing my head and rolled off me. I could barely stand and catch my wind. Nobody saw it, thank God and I got up and walked over to my truck. It finally hit me and I called my wife, I haven't cried like that since I was like 8 years old. I actually escaped death and had a limp for about 3 months. It took almost 6 months for the bruise to go away. Soon after that I started traveling around the east coast going to schools. I learned very quickly that It was just a matter of time until I was killed if I didn't get off that guys payroll. Has gone well for me ever since knock on wood. It was bad, bad, bad. I'm a lucky guy! Don't get the wrong impression, I don't think I'm a hack, I just started out the wrong way and it almost cost me my life.
 
It was on a fire; a 45" or so dbh burned out Cedar above a stream called Crescendo Creek in Idaho. Dropping it downhill with the lean. Worried about pinching the bar or limbs being thrown back, I never thought about something coming up a 40-45 degree slope. Below this tree was a 12 foot long smaller log in a teeter totter set-up. I hit the high side and it came up spinning with real power. The center of its spin almost to eye level 20 - 25 feet in front of us. My partner Larry called Time out. We weren't hurt, but both of us knew that we had not foreseen that and if the angle had been just slightly different we would have been smashed. I don't know that had we both been killed, even knowledgeable investigators would have been able to figure out what happened.

Dropping fire killed trees for erosion protection after the 1994 Wenatchee Fires I was well aware that brittle limbs from those dryer/dead trees are thrown back with regularity. I thought I was being very good about watching the trees go through neighboring timber for extended periods. Not just for one or two sways of the standing trees. I did not have an escape to behind another solid tree, which is preferred. My escape took me to 20-25 feet from the stump at a good 45 degree angle. My saw was down and clear; I turned to watch and dodge any limbs coming at me. One bigger one, (maybe 4" dia), went directly overhead, 15 feet above. I thought no problem and kept watching for more. That limb hit in a small fir and slid down its limbs back toward me. I'm still watching the swaying trees when it conked me on the hardhat with enough force to just start to ring my bell. Glad it was slowed down by those limbs.

I did my cuts right on this one, but it still would have been amusing to watch. The heaviest leaning tree I've ever fell. Really outta my league. Green Ponderosa about 42-45 inches dbh, 110+ high, with a lean that just shouted barber chair. (Tree was leaning over a paved road, hazard tree removal project). My partner said he wouldn't fall it but wanted to watch me. I did every thing correctly,
1) Went off and peed first,
2) Good face, didn't get my bar pinched,
3) Then center bored it and did 2" in side cuts below both hinge sides,
4) Bored the back to an appropriate hinge and felt the bar start to pinch,
5) Matched reasonably from the other side,
6) Did a back release.
It popped with authority. The ground below me shook just a bit. Sent a shiver through my spine.
I'm a 55 year old fat bald guy. All would have been impressed at my agile 90 degree escape.
 
While cutting a sweet gum, checked the tree, cut bed and final cut. Tree had a lean so should not have been a problem. Turned to walk away, but the tree followed me as it had a vine snagging it. Had to wait for my ROW partner to get to me and cut the tree off me. Hit in the hardhat from debris thrown from felled pine. Saw chain broke- cut through glove on right thumb. RattleSnake bite while cutting beetle killed pines on our tree farm alone, just made it out on that one- no more lone sorties.
 
I have two that really stick out in my mind, both happened in the state of Massachusetts.
In this state you can't have flagg men you have to pay for off duty police officer's to due traffic control.
The first one I was doing a removal on a 4 lane road and was getting ready to blow out about a 30' top when a little old lady just drove by everybody that was allready stoped, well the officer decided to stop her right under the tree I was topping. Lucky for all that I was able to hold on to a little stub and still get to my whistle. He moved her on and all truned out O.K. I came down and had a nice talk with him about a safe work zone and why he was here.
The second one was working on a removal contract for the city of Boston on some residental streets and some of the pepole were not happy about what was going on.
Well one of the residnts kept driving back and forth all day long just to be a pain in the a--. We were droping a 40" 20' red oak trunk and we were on a small hill so I put a skid steer and truck across the road so no one could sneek pass the officer on the blind side of me, and along comes the pain in the a-- drives around the officer saying " I live here he can wait" well he could not go pass my road block, I look up and there he is with a van full of kids. My heart stoped as the tree was falling straight at the back of the van and a kid, thank God the kid seen it comeing and jumped up front. The tree hit the back of the van stood it straight up in the air rolled off and slamed it back to the ground and broke every piece of glass in the van. No one was hurt and the dad ended up getting the ticket and a tongue lashing.
Both would have been avoidable if I had known about bore cutting way back then.
Be safe be happy Scotty
 
Mine too, but might help some younger climber's not make the stupid stuff happen to them. Like don't trust the one's around you just because they are trained in traffic control but not what can happen in the tree world.
Be safe Scotty
 
I have 2 of the same thing.

First time it was my brother removing a pine for me. I think he was up about 40 feet, lowering chunks of wood. He moved down to the bottom of next peice about 5-6' of wood. He put the sling around the tree, tied off the lowering line. And went ahead and started cutting it off. When the piece popped off. He was like why the @#$& isnt the ground guy slowing that pieced down yet. The ground guy meanwhile was standing down there holding a limp rope. My bro forgot to attach the lowering line to the sling... and forgot to double look at things before pushing it off. The tree was only about a foot away from the house. Thankfully, we were pushing the peices off in a 45 degree angle (or so) away from the house. So it only fell to the pavement below.

Unfortnately a few months or so I manage to do the same bloody thing. But even worse cause I had pretty much just got done telling my new ground guy the story. Now, everything gets double, tripke checked. And ground guy supposed to be watching to, to make sure it all hooked up.

i am sure there been other close calls, though I have never destroyed or cause any major damage to car, house, etc. But this one sticks out.

Ps- there are always idiots that think road/sidewalk closed doesnt include to them.
 
only one major brainfart i can think of, nearly killed me. i had 5+ yrs experience, was in the first 6 mos of working for myself. no chipper yet, no regular ground crew, probably insufficient gear. i was removing a dying cherry (35 ft?) between a nice new condo and a sidewalk with a driveway on the 3rd side and a fence on the 4th. underbid the job, so i was trying to hurry. mistake 1. underestimated the amt of brush i'd have to cram in my f250. mistake 2. my under the table ground crew for the day had cancelled, but i wanted to work so i started in. mistake 3. i was thinking too hard about too many things - rookie small business owner mistake 4. the big mistake that almost cost me my life was tipping a 15 foot top away from the nice new condo and toward the high tension wire that was 12 ft away which i hadn't noticed because of mistakes 1-4. had it tied off, was doing a backcut with my handsaw so i could run my own lowering line - top brushed the high tension wire and my angels all sat on it real hard so it would swing free and not kill me. i felt the buzz in my right hand, then my shins where my spikes took the current. then my heart went totally arhythmic for a few minutes while i stood there on my spikes trying to digest what had just happened. came down out of the tree, mada a phone call to a wire clearance buddy who said probably 13k volts by the description of the pole hardware. then, being really really dumb, i finished the job and went to the dump to unload the truck. later, at a friend's very calm suggestion, i went to the ER to get checked over, where i was told i was very lucky. no exit burns. fried my adrenal system for about a year and a half though.

i look fir wires now. duh.
k.
 
no, more like frequent shots of adrenalin at totally random moments - physical sensations like when your arm muscles burn and your heart races after an almost-wreck on the freeway. otherwise known as panic attacks. started the morning after i got zapped. took quite a while for my system to readjust. sucked.
 
Falling Doug Firs in Montana's Front Range, tipping about a 40" limby whale of a tree to the sidehill between two others. Of course the branches got all tied up so, not really knowing much about hingewood or proper felling techniques I decide to "finish the cut", standing on the downhill side I proceeded to nibble away at my hinge with the 28" bar then suddenly noticed the butt coming at me. The rest was just a blur, before I knew what happened I found myself about a hundred feet away accross the slope, I guess I ran but I've never moved that fast before or after. When I went back to the stump I found the entire tree hid slid down the slope well below where I was standing and there was a 4' dia. by 3' deep hole right where I had been standing.
 
When I lived up in the Adironodacks I was hooked up with a small logging comp. Out at the second camp we had we where working 2 tiers of trees ( basically tree up from one other). I had this brain storm why the poop are we cutting tree up from the other guys why not call then up here. That is when I heard the buzz of the saw and look 180 degrees and looked right at 3ft bdh Hemlock on my uppside. No notice to what was going on where they were cutting and felling i moved like a bunny grabbing my gear and hauled just as that bugger came down.
In the short time it took me to get 10 feet with saw and pack that tree was right where I was. In all the hussle and bussle and the wide eyes on the guy I looked down to see if I was still alive till I looked at what was my hard hat three foot behind me under a 10 bdh branch. At that time words where flying and so was I outta there. My brother inlaw saw it happen and he to was outta there. Since then all felling jobs are done with a cutter and a spotter. Only when we got home did I realize that a piece of wood upon impact with the ground had hit me in the back and left a 6 inch bruise on right shoulder area for 2 weeks. Just alil higher and well I would be in this thread as a casualty to stupidity.
 
4 or 5 years ago i was falling a 2 foot dia p. pine out into a field. it was going to brush past an oak so as it went over i walked back a few paces away from the oak. i was watching to see it went where i wanted and not looking up. an oak limb 8 feet long and 8 inch dia glanced off the back of my and ripped the saw from my grip. stupid for not looking up i had one of kathys adrenalin rushes!
 
When I was an apprentice (many years ago) I was sent to work with the conservation crew. The guy I was with had to cut down a huge Canary Island date palm on the hillside near Paget Marsh, one of our premier nature reserves.
He felled the palm across the slope, then started cutting the fronds off, I was the ignorant gopher just pulling the fronds aside so he could cut. Well, we had started on the DOWNHILL side, I was standing below this palm trunk which had to be 3'DBH, probably wieghed about 4 tons.
I had just moved to the uphill side of the trunk when he cut the last frond that was holding this massive trunk, it took off down the hill, smashed through a fence, scattered the cows in a paddock before rumbling to a stop about 60yds away.
If I had still been below the trunk I would have been a cow pat. Both of us knew how close we had come to disaster, I'll NEVER forget it.
 
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