Thread: Climber Crushed When Tree Splits Apart

From 'The Foxboro Reporter', Foxboro, MA. Sounds like the trunk he was harnessed to split right up and the parting sections compressed him in the lanyard loop.

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NEWS UPDATE: Man rescued by firefighters dies in hospital

By Stephen Peterson and Matt Kakley
Published: Thursday, October 20, 2011 9:33 AM EDT
A Walpole man severely injured over the weekend in a tree-cutting accident died of his injuries Wednesday in a Boston hospital.

John D. Robbins, 40, died in Brigham and Women's Hospital Wednesday afternoon, a hospital spokeswoman said. The news of his death came after this week's Foxboro Reporter had already gone to press.

Robbins had been listed in critical condition after he was hurt Sunday afternoon while cutting the top portion of a tree in the backyard of 14 Pine Acres Road in Foxboro.

Robbins was on a harness about 25 feet in the air when the bottom portion of the tree split, fire officials said. He was pressed up against the tree, knocked unconscious, suffered crushing-type injuries and was in cardiac arrest when firefighters arrived, officials said.

In a perilous 15-minute rescue, firefighters using ladders were able to tie a rope to the man's harness, then lift him off the tree and slowly lower him to the ground.

While being taken to Caritas Norwood Hospital with a police escort through Patriots game traffic, Foxboro rescue personnel were able to revive Robbins' pulse. He was later flown by medical helicopter to the Boston hospital.


Fire Capt. David Healy said Robbins was unconscious and in cardiac arrest when firefighters arrived at the scene about 1:30 p.m.

Despite the precarious nature of the tree, two firefighters went up on ladders to tend to the man, who was about 25 feet off the ground, Healy said.

Firefighters were able to tie a rope to the man's harness then lift him off the tree and slowly lower him to the ground. Once on the ground, firefighters began tending to the man, but while they were doing so a portion of the tree fell and narrowly avoided hitting firefighters and the victim.

Healy said an initial call for a medical helicopter was canceled. Because of the man's cardiac arrest, firefighters elected to bring him by ambulance to Norwood Hospital.

En route to the hospital, rescuers, who were given a police escort and weren't hampered by Patriots game traffic, were able to revive the man's pulse.

Once at the hospital, a medical helicopter was again called and the victim was airlifted to Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.

A veteran of the department, Healy said Sunday's rescue was one of the most dangerous he's seen.

"Due to the stability of the tree and the height (the man) was at ... it posed a great deal of risk," Healy said.

He praised the work of police and firefighters, including two who are members of a regional technical rescue team, with quickly getting the man safely down from the tree and to the hospital.

"They did a really remarkable job in the face of what we were up against," he said.

Sad to hear Prayers are to to the family.

Man! sounds like that tree was in bad shape. I wonder if he knew the potential hazard he was climbing. Be interesting to see pics of the tree.

God rest his soul!

God bless good sir.

The information being provided here is not to insult this man or question his judgement in any way but as a means to help others from suffering the same fate.

Normally on co-dominant stems that appear to be at risk of failure we use rachet straps and slings to tie the stems together on the way up, and if I'm feeling really chicken that day ill tie the stems and remove the tree starting from the top down in order to keep it more stable once the tops are down I go back to the bottom and work my way up. This method is a little more time consuming but well worth it.

Not sure, but it sounds like he was in the process of bombing the top and the pole barber chaired below the notch. That would pull him up tight to the pole by his lanyard, and if the top got hung up and didn't fall to the ground (like if he didn't get to finish his back cut) it would keep the pressure on him. Sounds like maybe thats what happened, and possibly the hinge finally broke while they were working under the tree and the top fell out and nearly smashed the rescuers.

That sucks.

Having a top split out on me is probably my #1 fear while working aloft. I have almost been crushed by my flipline in the past, I saved myself only because my saw kept running and i was able to cut my flipline with it. If I had just flipped that switch to the off position I wouldn't be here today, no chance I would have been able to get to my knife in time. Anytime I am up cutting a top or a big limb, especially if it has a lot of tension on it due to a lean or horizontal angle, I am very very careful of where I place my safety lines and how I make my cuts. Even with precautions, miscalculations and hidden defects can turn against you faster than you can blink. I don't know the exact situation that this unfortunate gentleman was in but its a terrible accident for sure, bad luck, my thoughts go out to his family and friends. Stay safe everybody.

I wish I had a good rescue plan for situations like this. I don't know what to tell my groundsmen to do in this situation other than call 911 and tell them to come equipped for a high angle rescue, or if it looks like I wont make it anyways: drop the tree and try to drag me out from under it. I've been squeezed before, so from experience I know that if you don't get free within 30 seconds to a minute you are out cold. If no one relieves the pressure within 5-10 minutes there is a very good chance your a goner, you just cant breathe with that much pressure on your chest and lower back, believe me I've tried.

Originally Posted by chad556

Having a top split out on me is probably my #1 fear while working aloft. I have almost been crushed by my flipline in the past, I saved myself only because my saw kept running and i was able to cut my flipline with it. If I had just flipped that switch to the off position I wouldn't be here today, no chance I would have been able to get to my knife in time. Anytime I am up cutting a top or a big limb, especially if it has a lot of tension on it due to a lean or horizontal angle, I am very very careful of where I place my safety lines and how I make my cuts. Even with precautions, miscalculations and hidden defects can turn against you faster than you can blink. I don't know the exact situation that this unfortunate gentleman was in but its a terrible accident for sure, bad luck, my thoughts go out to his family and friends. Stay safe everybody.

I wish I had a good rescue plan for situations like this. I don't know what to tell my groundsmen to do in this situation other than call 911 and tell them to come equipped for a high angle rescue, or if it looks like I wont make it anyways: drop the tree and try to drag me out from under it. I've been squeezed before, so from experience I know that if you don't get free within 30 seconds to a minute you are out cold. If no one relieves the pressure within 5-10 minutes there is a very good chance your a goner, you just cant breathe with that much pressure on your chest and lower back, believe me I've tried.

Limb Walker
God bless the family and friends......Keeps us in check knowing we are in the #1 hot spot for most dangerous jobs in the WORLD.......when it's your time it's your time i guess and as far as planning for something like this you CANT too many thing's can go rong as we all no, you have if your lucky a 50/50 chance.! my thoughts go out to the family cheers mate! and too all the fellow arborists out there slow down and dont forget respecting mother nature and her RATH.....

I used Bing to pull up a birds-eye map to try and see what kind of trees were being cut. You can find that map here: http://binged.it/tphYYW

Additionally, I've posted a screen-captured image here for discussion purposes:



house.jpg

My thoughts and prayers go out to this guy's family.

I never will forget when I was first learning to climb. We were doing like 22 Pines on a large property. The guy I worked for, who was teaching me to climb, dropped a large leaner without notching it, barber chairing it on purpose. When it split to shreds he pointed it out to me and told me to look at how it had split. He then said imagine if you were 20' up tied into it when that happened. It made a huge impression on me that I will never forget.

Originally Posted by chad556

...

I wish I had a good rescue plan for situations like this. ...

There are quite a few ways to avoid being crushed by a split. The best way I know of is to make sure that you don't cause a split to begin with. If there is no good way to avoid the risk, then your should isolate yourself from the loop by running your lanyard/buckstrap back through both d-rings to itself. That way, should a split occur, it will draw tight against itself, and the climber will not be crushed.

Of course, this will keep you alive and healthy until the buckstrap breaks; then you have an entirely different problem of how not to fall off the broken stem.

I recommend using another option: you should be double tied anyway, so use your climbing line to secure the tree from splitting, but remain tied in. This way you are not likely to be unable to come down (under control, of course) from the tree if your buckstap should fail or get trapped by a crushing split.

Other options include making a second securement of some sort around the trunk to hold a split, should it happen. Chains and winch straps are popular ways of doing that.

just another possibility to avoid getting hurt by splitting trunks and also keep a rescue-save-line:

Or: How can you get rescued by your groundies when unconscious hanging in in your double layed steel lanyard which you can"t open if someone hangs in it?

I use a 30'-45' climbing rope with an eye at each end, a very short prusssik near each end and a trilock karab attached to each end. The upper end is around the trunk, the karab links eye and prussik - so I easily can attach it to each diameter. In the rope ring I fit another trilock or better a ring, through which leads my normal climbing system (rope). You only have to see that your prussik is save away or on the opposite side - once I've tested going slowly down when not wanting, because my anchoring ring was too near at the prussik and shifted it...
So I'm always anchored in comfortably distance, if you fit a strong prussik, it should withstand splitting; the doubled lanyard is for redundance/cutproof.

The second end you can use in case of rescueing to make a similar ring above the unconscious climber (1' height is enough) and you can lift him some inches using a sling pushing down with your knee to loosen the lanyard - works great in tests and thank got I'd never had to use it in emergency.

I use a non-steel core buck strap and I always have a knife/snips and a rope to get down. if the tree is split or looks like it may split i wrench it up with a come-a-long. if there is a taller tree close by-- i ll use that one to tie in.

RIP, Bad news like this makes my old lady hate my job.