Tree Service Owner Charged In Death of Employee

Rugged made
Wesspur
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Endless speculation. Are there enough facts, say it again, facts, to hang the owner?:monkey:
 
Wow, you were quick.

And there is endless speculation as we ask ourselves how this could have happened, and how can we prevent it happening to us. :cheers:
 
clearance said:
Endless speculation. Are there enough facts, say it again, facts, to hang the owner?:monkey:
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Thats why there are trials, for the truth be be found, hopefully.
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Looks like you answered your own question there mate.

I choose to speculate, prior to trial, what the cause of this tragedy was. It is, as you correctly point out, speculation. After trial, if it is proven that the company owner was indeed negligent in his duty of care to his employees then and only then should he be hung out to dry. If I have given the impression he should be hung without trial I apologise. On the other hand, had this occurred to one of my sons on another mans job site I would braiding rope right now.
 
pdqdl said:
Some of those citations sound like a vindictive bureaucracy seeking to get even for the unfortunate death of a worker.

Assess the work area to see if there were hazards that would require workers to wear protective equipment. Really? It's only tree work!

Make sure each employee wore foot protection such as heavy-duty logging boots. I don't think the fellow died from injuries to his feet.

Provide first-aid kits at work sites where trees were being cut. It would have had to be one heck of a first aid kit to save him.

Start chain saws on the ground. Since when is that a rule? I have read manufacturer's instructions that tell you to hold the saw between your legs.

Make sure brakes were engaged on the chain saw when it was started. Since when is that a rule?

I don't pretend to know all the OSHA rules, and these are all good things to do or have on the job. It sounds to me like a stack of petty charges, none of which would have saved the guy if they had been rigidly enforced.


Some years back I had two idiots that almost got squished after the tree was pulled in their direction. They pulled a huge oak over, the rope went slack, and they stood there like posts, apparently mesmerized. The cutter yelled "RUN !!!", and they came to life before it got them. There was lots of room for there to be no risk to begin with, and they were not new to tree work.
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Well put.
 
RVALUE said:
Well put.
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Not necessarily.

Someone else above posted the rules that stipulate starting a chainsaw on the ground with then chain brake engaged. So I guess my question got answered, but my point was undermined by the fact that I didn't know those particular rules.

The real issue in this thread seems to be that we are collectively outraged that some poor newbie got crushed by being where he should never have been. Some are directing that ire at the owner of the business, and others (probably seeing themselves in that position) are a bit more lenient; turning instead on the feeble response of the government that is using it's misguided power to persecute the owner rather than taking steps that actually do something good. I consider myself among the latter group.

The bottom line to this story is that the kid got killed in a preventable accident, and we should all take the necessary steps to prevent it from happening again. Like so many other fatalities and injuries that are posted here, there is nothing we can do once the damage has occurred. Prevention is the only treatment for this kind of incident.
 
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pdqdl said:
Not necessarily.

Someone else above posted the rules that stipulate starting a chainsaw on the ground with then chain brake engaged. So I guess my question got answered, but my point was undermined by the fact that I didn't know those particular rules.

The real issue in this thread seems to be that we are collectively outraged that some poor newbie got crushed by being where he should never have been. Some are directing that ire at the owner of the business, and others (probably seeing themselves in that position) are a bit more lenient; turning instead on the feeble response of the government that is using it's misguided power to persecute the owner rather than taking steps that actually do something good. I consider myself among the latter group.

The bottom line to this story is that the kid got killed in a preventable
accident, and we should all take the necessary steps to prevent it from happening again. Like so many other fatalities and injuries that are posted here, there is nothing we can do once the damage has occurred. Prevention is the only treatment for this kind of incident.
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:agree2: Would rep you if I could.
 
OK, if I step on someones toes so be it. I googled Buzzell tree service and all I got was his yellow page add. It actually said Bussell and Son Tree and Lawn service. Since it's a father and son operation I'm gonna ASSume he's been in business a while and he's not a new fly by night guy. Ultimately the buck stops at the boss. I would like to go after the guy with the saw. He could have stopped everything before anything happened. But, at the end of the day, the boss put the foreman in charge. As an owner you have to know who's running your op when your not there. Do I feel sympathetic for the owner. Of course. But that doesn't change the fact of who put the leader in charge. The rest of Buzzell's life is ruined. The boy's life is gone. How should he be punished, that's for the legal system.

I changed my mind. I read his Yellow Page add and saw some things that prejudiced me and there were things that weren't in his add that I would like to have seen there. The thing I was going to say was opinionated and not based on any fact so I'm gonna keep my big mouth shut, Joe.
 
Trial started today. As of this posting, 2 reader comments were posted and C&P below.

http://www.unionleader.com/article.aspx?headline=Negligent+homicide+trial+of+arborist+begins&articleId=26c455e0-5ad0-4006-b43f-233ff8d0815f

Tree felling negligent homicide trial begins

By JAMES A. KIMBLE
Union Leader Correspondent
4 hours, 11 minutes ago

BRENTWOOD – Workers were not properly equipped to take down an 80-foot pine tree in sections the day Jon Paul LaVigueur died, according to the prosecution at the trial of an East Kingston man charged with negligent homicide.

The men were using broken rope, too short to safely control the fall of a section of the massive 80-foot pine they were felling, the prosecution said yesterday in Rockingham County Superior Court.

Jurors began weighing today whether LaVigueur's boss, Maurice Buzzell, 53, of East Kingston, is guilty of negligent homicide and reckless conduct for creating unsafe work conditions that led to LaVigueur's death on Aug. 7, 2007, at a work site on 15th Street in Kingston.

After LaVigueur's body was removed that day, an Occupational Safety and Health Administration investigator determined Buzzell, owner of Buzzell Tree Service, was in violation of several safety standards.

Prosecutors say those violations led to LaVigueur's death.

"The defendant said, ‘Don't let go of the rope until the tree starts to fall,' " said Assistant County Attorney Amy Connolly in her opening remarks.

LaVigueur was one of three men pulling a rope tied to the tree. It was the practice at Buzzell's job sites for the men to scatter as a tree or tree section began falling, according to prosecutors.

"J.P., the victim, was the last in line," Connolly said. "You will hear from the employees there wasn't a lot of room to run.

"He ran but he didn't run fast enough," the prosecutor said.

The trial will include several eyewitnesses working with LaVigueur the day he died, along with testimony from police and industry experts. The defense contends prosecutors are citing safety standards that can't be applied to Buzzell's kind of tree cutting business and are expected to call their own experts.

"The guidelines the government (is using) have been misapplied," defense lawyer Steven Colella said. "This was not a logging operation. This was arborist work and this was, in fact, a completely different animal."

Colella suggested Buzzell actually made the work environment safer that day by instructing workers to lop off branches on a tree until it stood as a single pole before cutting it down.

"The process that took place that day was acceptable," he said. "It was a process that (LaVigueur) engaged in a 100 different prior occasions. This isn't something he was thrown into."

He said the only thing that didn't go as planned was the direction LaVigueuer ran to escape the falling tree's path.

Buzzell's trial is expected to last two to three days. If convicted on either charge, Buzzell is facing 3 1/2 to 7 years in state prison.

YOUR COMMENTS

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You don't need room to run! The tree is only 1-3feet wide you needed to move away to the sides not run w/ the tree!!Its a case of looking to blame someone for their own negligence,There is only one person to blame for their actions,and he already paid for his mistake!!!!
- Logger, Nottinham

is anyone else sick of this crap ????
an awful accident happens and someone has to be lynched for it. ow my god !!! he was working with a short rope !!! he did have the option of going home instead of working under these ridiculous conditions !!! know why he didnt ?? he was lucky enough to have a job and needed to pay for heat and electric. im sure if buzzell followed all safty regulations and everything was up to code, hed have to charge a much higher price and he'd have NO work
- ron, atkinson
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Short rope could have been rememdied by using wedges or a redirect block. Or simply get another rope and tie the two together... What kind of tree company only has one rope that is less than 100'..

They probably did have other ropes on the job, they just had a customary practice of pulling and running... as they said, we did it 100 times like that and never had a problem... Truth is they did have a problem, they just didn't see it as that... I heard Dr Ball give a talk at the penn-del ISA symposium yesterday.. he said he hears it all the time after a fatality.... "we've done it like that 100 times"..

It is the owners responibility to provide a safe work environment.. Now running for your life as the tree is falling does not make a safe work environment IMO... What happens if someone trips or panics and runs the wrong way, or has a leg cramp? There are a lot of dangerous things that arborists do.. Its part of the job.. Sure people make mistakes and suffer from of lack of knowledge and training.. Freaky things happen.. But not here...what really bothers me about this one is how easy it would have been to minimize the risk to almost 0, by simply tying on an extension or put a redirect pulley on the tree... It is just common sense... Why play roulette with the workers lives when it all could be prevented with a simple extension.
 
as to wether or not the owner's negligence is criminal... Glad its not up to me to decide... 3.5-7 is a long time... Hard to say... He needs to change his ways... Be a shame if he killed someone else cause he didn't change.. Maybe there should be some type of remedial arborists safety course, like they give drivers when they get too many points...

This guy definitely needs to take one.. Maybe the owner should pay to have a safety consultant come and retrain the crew as part of the penalty...
 
For clarity, and this comes from Dr John Ball, as I just heard him speak yesterday..
It is the employers responaability to provide a safe work environment..

And OSHA can use the logging standard (and other standards) on tree services and it does not matter what ANSI says.

The above comes from Dr Ball.

I take that to be that OSHA may generally look at and accept the ANSI standards as safe practices, but is not bound by them..
 
pdqdl said:
. . . the feeble response of the government that is using it's misguided power to persecute the owner rather than taking steps that actually do something good.
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It's hard for the safety guys (company, insurance, or government) to 'win' with some people.

Safety rules, guidelines, regulations, methods, equipment, PPE, etc. are almost all reactive - 'written in blood' so to speak. Something bad happens, or more importantly, a pattern of bad things happen, and the rules are devised to protect others.

If the 'safety guy' tries to gain acceptance for these BEFORE someone is hurt or killed, he's hit with a flurry of "That's never happened to ME!". "I've never used . . . " "My grandfather logged for 150 years and he never . . ." "None of the REAL (fill in whatever occupation here) use/do that!" "You don't know what you are talking about" etc. If the workers do not have personal experience with that particular bad experience there is tremendous resistance to the point that some go out of their way to find reasons why they will not use something or do something a certain way.

If the 'safety guy' comes out AFTER someone is hurt or killed, it's all "Why weren't YOU here before?" "Why didn't YOU prevent this instead of trying to find fault/assign blame afterward?".

The earlier post about OSHA rules and PPE has some truth: steel toed boots don't provide much protection against a widow maker. A hard hat doesn't protect against a chainsaw running against a boot. Gloves don't do much to prevent hearing loss, etc. Because it is impossible to know which thing is going to happen on a specific day, there are a number of rules, regs, etc. based on injury statistics that tell them what types of of things happen to tree cutters, loggers, etc. In this case, it might have been more about procedures and methods used than PPE. Different in another case.

The new guys don't know anything, so they trust that what their employer is telling them is the right thing to do, which is why I have little respect for the guy quoted at the end of Woodbooga's post (" . . . he did have the option of going home . . .")

You wouldn't want OSHA, or any regulatory agency, staring at you over your shoulder and watching you while you work, and there aren't enough safety guys in the world to do that anyway. So they use after the fact investigation and enforcement to send a message to others in the field. If a company owner or foreman doesn't believe in 'all that safety stuff', he might follow some of the regs to avoid potential fines/financial penalties.

If the owner of a company gets sent to jail because he/she intentionally put employees at risk, you better believe that it will get the attention of other companies in that business, a whole lot more that even fines will. It won't bring this worker back, but it could keep others from getting killed or maimed due to their employers indifference.

Philbert
 
Philbert said:
It's hard for the safety guys (company, insurance, or government) to 'win' with some people.

Safety rules, guidelines, regulations, methods, equipment, PPE, etc. are almost all reactive - 'written in blood' so to speak. Something bad happens, or more importantly, a pattern of bad things happen, and the rules are devised to protect others.

If the 'safety guy' tries to gain acceptance for these BEFORE someone is hurt or killed, he's hit with a flurry of "That's never happened to ME!". "I've never used . . . " "My grandfather logged for 150 years and he never . . ." "None of the REAL (fill in whatever occupation here) use/do that!" "You don't know what you are talking about" etc. If the workers do not have personal experience with that particular bad experience there is tremendous resistance to the point that some go out of their way to find reasons why they will not use something or do something a certain way.

If the 'safety guy' comes out AFTER someone is hurt or killed, it's all "Why weren't YOU here before?" "Why didn't YOU prevent this instead of trying to find fault/assign blame afterward?".

The earlier post about OSHA rules and PPE has some truth: steel toed boots don't provide much protection against a widow maker. A hard hat doesn't protect against a chainsaw running against a boot. Gloves don't do much to prevent hearing loss, etc. Because it is impossible to know which thing is going to happen on a specific day, there are a number of rules, regs, etc. based on injury statistics that tell them what types of of things happen to tree cutters, loggers, etc. In this case, it might have been more about procedures and methods used than PPE. Different in another case.

The new guys don't know anything, so they trust that what their employer is telling them is the right thing to do, which is why I have little respect for the guy quoted at the end of Woodbooga's post (" . . . he did have the option of going home . . .")

You wouldn't want OSHA, or any regulatory agency, staring at you over your shoulder and watching you while you work, and there aren't enough safety guys in the world to do that anyway. So they use after the fact investigation and enforcement to send a message to others in the field. If a company owner or foreman doesn't believe in 'all that safety stuff', he might follow some of the regs to avoid potential fines/financial penalties.

If the owner of a company gets sent to jail because he/she intentionally put employees at risk, you better believe that it will get the attention of other companies in that business, a whole lot more that even fines will. It won't bring this worker back, but it could keep others from getting killed or maimed due to their employers indifference.

Philbert
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:agree2:
 
LOCK HIM UP.
the kid died as a result of his stupidity, and the Govt's responsibility in this case is to protect the workers from an unscrupulous boss who wants to make mo money, mo money.

was my son, wouldn't be a trial. not for him anyway.:chainsaw:

And murph, who's Dr. Ball?
 
John Ball..
He's a former tree care company owner and now teaches at South Dakota state U. He's done to my knowledge the most comprehensive research on fatalities in tree care and logging... He actually has figured out a way to get the info on tree fatalities from police, fire and hospitals... Then he's analized the data to figure out how we were killing ourselves and what can be done to prevent future deaths.. Really good work and he's a great speaker, in that his talks are both informative and will keep the audiences attention..
 
murphy4trees said:
John Ball..
He's a former tree care company owner and now teaches at South Dakota state U. He's done to my knowledge the most comprehensive research on fatalities in tree care and logging... He actually has figured out a way to get the info on tree fatalities from police, fire and hospitals... Then he's analized the data to figure out how we were killing ourselves and what can be done to prevent future deaths.. Really good work and he's a great speaker, in that his talks are both informative and will keep the audiences attention..
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Chance of a link or an email address Daniel? I know a few owners who, like myself, would be very keen to see how and why these things happen. Even better if there are some pointers on prevention.
 

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