Thread: Close calls

OK fellas, in my latest blunder I wasn't injured but the story bears telling. The way I see it the near misses are as important as the accidents and fortunately not as tragic, so lets have 'em. Either your not so cool moments or ones you have witnessed. I'll start.

About 3 weeks ago I dropped a 50 ft white oak in some fairly dense timber. About 40 feet out in the path of the fall there was an old dead tree. It was only about 10" DBH and 25 feet tall or so. All of the branches had already fallen off so it was just a scrawny little stick poking up into the air. I'm not even close to it and the tree I'm falling is just going to knock it down right? WRONG! When the tree I felled hit the dead tree the top 6 feet snapped off and came whipping through the air straight at me, spinning like a freaking boomerang. I involuntarily ducked to the left and threw my right arm up to cover my face, MS650 still in hand. The flying wood brushed my right arm and grazed my hard hat without leaving so much as a scratch.

I had been cutting all day, was hot, tired, got lazy and didn't drop that little dead tree. It nearly cost me.

Did you need to change your shorts after that? Lesson learned.

i bare a few scars from lessons you only need to learn once...

Originally Posted by hanniedog

Did you need to change your shorts after that?

Not quite, but it did give me something to think about while I was trying to fall asleep that night.

I had one happen just recently. I was never in any danger really, but my complacency gave me quite a scare. I was rec climbing a 70' Silver Maple. I was getting my line set and I aimed up at the crotch i wanted. I was close but the throw line didn't come down to settle in the crotch i wanted. There were a ton of leaves in the way, it was about 50 feet up, I wasn't in the crotch I wanted but I figured I was in one that was about 5 feet above it. I did a pull test, bounced on the rope and everything seemed ok. I figured that even if it slipped down the only place the rope could go was onto the crotch I originally wanted anyway.

Well the reality of the situation was that my rope was hung up on a completely concealed, pencil thick twig coming out of the branch about 5 feet above the main crotch i was hoping to get. From my angle it looked like I was in a better crotch with a ~3" branch coming off of the 5" leader, when in fact i was stuck on this twig just inches below it concealed by leaves. Either way the rope was around the 5" leader so i figured I was good to go.

I started the ascent, bounced a little to check like I always do and kept going. I got up about 15 feet and was still pulling myself up on the rope when CRACK! The next thing i know was I was only 10 feet off the ground and hanging upside down in my saddle with adrenaline coursing through my veins. My friction hitch had caught my shirt along with the rope and ripped a nice 10" gash across the midsection. It happened so fast there was no way to react. It is a sickening feeling when the rope you are trusting just 'lets go' like that. I was alright so I kept climbing, the rope was set perfectly in the right crotch at that point. There was no way I would have fallen in this scenario and I knew that going into it but still its was scary as hell and a good wake up call to learn to always be 100% sure about your TIP